Just bought some new home theater components and I have some questions that I bet are pretty easily answereable:
1. Is there a differencbe between a "digital coax" cable and a standard audio cable with RCA connectors on each end? My new receiver (a Sony STRDE895S) only has a digital coax audio input for the DVD (vs. optical). I tried a standard RCA audio cable, and it seemed to work, but sort of not...
2. All my components are new and fairly high-end (for consumer market stuff); however, when I put in a fairly newish DVD to test the audio, I could only get the receiver to play the audio in PCM mode, and I'm pretty sure that's not very good compared to, say 5.1 (I could be completely talking out of my hiney here for all I know). Am I not doing something correctly that is causing the surround sound not to be working at its optimal level?
3. This one is probably a *really* stupid questions..but...the new TV is a widescreen HDTV. The DVD I put in was one of the LOTR movies that says "widescreen format". However, when I played the movie, it was still letterboxed. Shouldn't it take up the entire screen playing a widescreen-format DVD to a widescreen TV? I tried all the "wide" settings on the TV (a Sony KP51WS510), but none of them seemed to cause the whole screen to fill.
Sorry for the rambling questions...but any informed answers will definitely be appreciated.
The RCA should work. Try the setup menu of your DVD player set to Dolby Digital/DTS to see if that solves your 5.1 problem.
If that doesn't do it, Also check On your receiver, does "COAX" light up when you select the DVD player as your input on the little screen? That should tell you if the signal is being recognized, but if you have sound it should be. Lastly you may have to set the input to "coax" on the receiver as the audio source if you haven't already done so. Again if you have sound that shouldn't be it but just in case.
Some movies are shot in a wider than 16:9 aspect ratio so it still letterboxes on a widescreen TV.
1. Is there a differencbe between a "digital coax" cable and a standard audio cable with RCA connectors on each end? My new receiver (a Sony STRDE895S) only has a digital coax audio input for the DVD (vs. optical). I tried a standard RCA audio cable, and it seemed to work, but sort of not...
...yes there is a difference. One puts out or accepts digital through 1 coaxial or RCA input, this takes care of all the 5.1 signals. (It should be orange in color). The other (red and white) is stereo analog and puts out left and right channels only. You can use one or the other or both. Go to the set up of your DVD and go to the menu that deals with audio--turn on the Dolby Digital and DTS output. Check the DVD player video section and set it it to widescreen or 16:9 and not pan & scan or letterbox. When playing DVDs you can change your screen format to standard (depending on the dvd will take up the whole screen or there will be some black bars on the top and bottom). You can also set it to expand(it will fill your screen but the picture will be distorted or stretched lengthwise), zoom (this will fill your whole screen but the top and bottom will be slightly cutoff and if you are using subtitles, it maybe cut off, too)or stretch (this will stretch the sides of the picture). Again the way it will look on your screen is totally dependent on how the movie was filmed. cheers
I think his first question was "can I use a standard RCA cable to hook up the digital coax in/out, or do I need to buy the special jacked up price digital coax cable?"
I've read on here in the past that you can use a standard RCA cable, although I don't personally....what's the deal Berny? Can you?
I am having difficulty getting my Sony remote control to control the components attached my home theatre reciever. Got the system in 2001/2002. When I first set up the system it actually just allowed me to switch to what every input I needed and that was all, I would have to use the indiviual components remote to contol that device. I recently moved and when I set up the system I was able to control my dvd and vcr, When I hit the botton for the dvd it would switch my tv screen to that input and if a dvd was in the machine start to play it, same would happen with the vcr. I did not have to switch to another input on my tv or anything. Problem..just moved everything to another location in room . Remote is now not controlling either dvd or vcr. I can get the audio but no picture. Also I have a directv-dvr hooked up to the reciever(that's is all I getting now). This is driving me crazy, I have rechecked the setup config a couple times and see no problems... any help would be appreciated.
I have SONY-750 Home theater.How much height should i keep for front and surround speaker. I am moving to new appartment there i can place my speaker above 6.5ft.IS it ok. what abot centre speaker Is it wise to keep it centrally at 6ft height. Your respose would be appriciable..
Ideally, your main speaker sections, i.e., front left/right and center should be at ear level when you are at your listening position. The surrounds should be above your listening level but not pointing down to the listener.
Speaking of setup questions, I'm running component cables from my DVD directly to the TV and the audio to the A/V receiver. Is there any advantage/disadvantage of the video going through the A/V receiver and then to the TV?