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Les Unregistered guest | I am having a hard time hooking things up with my newly added onto system. I need to hook up the following: 1. my receiver Onkyo HTR420 2. my DVD player Onkyo DVCP-701 3. my VCR Magnavox 4. my cable box Motorola 5. my TV Sharp I want digital input (my stereo receiver is 5.1 dolby digital) from my cable box AND my DVD player. The limitations are: 1. my VCR does not have S-video jacks 2. my TV is old-school and ONLY has the RF cable jack 3. my receiver has one optical and one coax digital input jack. Can you please please help me out? I'm usually good at these things, but this is complex and I still don't have a good understanding of digital vs. analog, dolby pro vs. dolby digital, etc. I WANT my system to perform at its optimum and I cannot afford to buy a new TV right now (so please don't tell me that is the answer). Thanks for your help!!! |
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Unregistered guest | According to the manuals for the HT-R420 and the DV-CP701 both units support both digital/optical and digital/coax. In addition the HT-R420 supports full 6-cable RCA type connectors. The only component that is unknown is your cable box. The only way you will get 5.1 sound from the cable box is if it supports digital/optical, digital/coax, or 6-pack RCA connection. Whichever one it supports will drive your DVD to Receiver decision. Example: Cable box supports ONLY digital/optical. Go to Best Buy (or wherever) and buy a 6 foot digital/optical cable (24.95). Connect cable box to Receiver. Then you use a 6 foot digital/coax cable to connect the DVD to Receiver. If you want to hear your VCR through the receiver, you'll need to connect using RCA (mono or stereo) connection to VIDEO-1 IN. *** THAT SHOULD TAKE CARE OF DVD/CABLE/VCR SOUND INTO THE RECEIVER Video Options: (1) Leave your video connections as is. At least test all of your audio setup with video as-is, even if you plan on changing it later. (2) The more complex option follows. If your TV only supports coax CATV connection, then you won't be connecting your Receiver directly to the TV. Also, more than likely your receiver will not convert S-VIDEO to Composite. You will need to connect Composite from DVD (VIDEO - yellow RCA) to Receiver (DVD IN-yellow RCA). Run Composite from Receiver (MONITOR OUT-Yellow RCA) to VCR. Then the VCR will have to connect to the TV using good old coax CATV connection. If I didn't mis-type something here, and if the Electronic Dieties smile upon you, you will get 5.1 sound from your receiver, and a picture will show on your TV. I learned on this forum that my TX-SR502 does not support upconversion (e.g. Composite to S-VIDEO) or downconversion. All of my connections must be Component, OR S-Video, OR Composite. No mixing. Yours may be the same. If you upgrade your TV, and decide to improve your connections by switching everything to S-VIDEO, you will need to switch all of your connections. Then you'll connect all of your video equipment through your Receiver via S-VIDEO. You'll still need to figure out what to do with your VCR. I just solved a problem like that with my unit. I'm tired of typing, so drop a line if you upgrade your TV but not your VCR. You might need to putz around with your VCR to set your input to LINE or AUX or something like that. If worse comes to worse, just ditch the idea of video connection through the Receiver, and leave all of your video connections as-is. P.S. Why 6 feet? You only need 3 feet in most final configurations, but when you are testing, you may have your units backwards and sideways and not on top of each other. That's when you'll be happy you have 6 foot cables. |
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Silver Member Username: John_sColumbus, Ohio US Post Number: 221 Registered: Feb-04 | Good job Rene! Les's stickiest problem here is how to get video from the DVD into his TV. He has no choice but to run DVD video through a composite line input on the VCR. (I would bypass the receiver and go from DVD directly to the VCR.) The VCR will then convert the DVD video signal to either channel 3 or 4. This means that 1) the VCR must be turned on when playing DVDs, and 2) the VCR must be switched to the line input so it recognizes the incoming DVD video signal. |
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Unregistered guest | That's pretty much why my first recommendation is to leave everything as is. I am assuming that Les' DVD is connected through his VCR to his TV. I've had a couple of DVD Players, and I haven't seen any with CATV out. From a technology point of view, there's not much point in having high resolution DVD video, then pushing it through a low-resolution CATV. I actually did that for a couple of years with my RCA 25" TV, but I really saw the difference when I connected my DVD player directly to my new TV via Component Video. |
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Les Unregistered guest | Thank you both for your efforts. I am going to Radio Shack with a list as we speak and will attemp the hook-up this afternoon. Thanks again! Les |
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Unregistered guest | Let us know how it works out. I just installed an Onkyo Receiver, so I just through some of the issues myself. BTW Walmart had 6 foot digital/optical and digital/coax cables for a much less than Best Buy. I did not buy, since I already have the digital/optical. If you buy optical, don't forget to take off the protective plastic hood. |
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Unregistered guest | Here's the solution that I use - Go to Walmart and get a Philips Audio/Video Switchbox With RF Modulator for $30.(http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=2181628&cat=4537&type=19&d ept=3944&path=0%3A3944%3A3964%3A163399%3A4537) Video: Connect the cable box and the DVD player to the switchbox input using S-vid. Connect the VCR to the switchbox input using composite. Connect the switchbox output to the TV using a RF cable. Audio: Connect the DVD and cable box to the receiver using digital cables. Connect the DVD and cable box AND vcr to the switchbox input using stereo analog cables. Connect the switchbox output to the receiver using stereo analog cables. Thus, the receiver will get input from a digital cable where available and from an analog cable in all instances. And, the TV will get its RF input from the switchbox which will convert s-vid to RF and composite to RF. The swichbox box will automatically do the video switching for you. This solution has worked very well for me for over a year. |