OK, I’ve got the DVD hooked up with my optical cable and s-video to the receiver. No problem there. Sounds fantastic (esp. with that optical cable :D).
Here’s my hang up: I’ve got a digital cable box. The cable box has s-video outs and RCA outs as well as regular coax outs. My VCR has RCA ins and, of course, coax ins as well as coax and RCA outs. There are no s-video connections on the VCR. My question is how should I configure the cable hookup to the receiver?
If I use the RCA ins on the VCR, whenever I want to watch TV, I have to grab the VCR remote and switch the input of the VCR. I could bypass the VCR, but then I can’t record. I could use the coax inputs on the VCR but doesn’t this defeat the purpose of digital cable (besides the over 200 channels [sub]which is really only 80 channels of TV, 50 of music, and the rest are PPV[/sub])?
My searches on google have only turned up cursory explanations of how to hook up TV to cable boxes or VCRs to TV. Nothing goes into detail about the digital cable converter and VCR to receiver combo.
Note: the receiver is a sony str-de975 with 3 s-video inputs.
You should take advantage of the Svideo hookups wherever possible.
I would hookup everything ignoring the VCR more or less, by splitting the dig cable signal…one would be svideo hookups all around, so you can do all the viewing, and for other times when you need to tape something, use the coaxial input, and have that use another input into the TV.
I would have to be hands on to really make the best connection, but the gist of it is this:
The VCR prevents you from a perfect set up. As long as you have/use it, you’ll need to switch inputs from the remote. If you can get the VCR a signal, you can tape stuff, so definitely give it a signal…but do you really need it hooked-up to your home theater?
Lose the VCR…or keep it hooked up to a seperate video inout on the TV. Definitely keep it OUT of the home theater loop!
Your best option is to bypass reciever/cable box/VCR altogether and connect your DVD S-video cable directly to your TV. There are a few reasons for this, 1. Every time you use a pass-thru the signal quality degrades and 2. If you intend to pass the video signal thru the VCR you’ll have to deal with Macrosvision copy protection. Most DVDs contain Macrovision which mucks up most VCR’s automatic gain control, causing the picture to cycle from very dark to bright to dark again.
Solution: you either buy an expensive box to strip the macrovision signal or connect the DVD directly to the TV. If your TV does not have s-video input, you can buy a cheap RF modulator from Radio Shack to allow you to coax in. If your TV only has 1 input jack you can buy a video switch box to allow you to manually switch from your DVD signal to your VCR/Cable box.
Alright, so that means I’ll use both outputs from the cable box: the coax to the vcr so I can tape stuff, and the RCA/S-video for cool home theater sound and picture that will shake the walls.
My DVD S-video goes to my receiver. My receiver has an S-video out to the TV. Am I going to notice any degradation in that signal than if I went directly to the TV from the DVD?
Thanks for the advice fellas. I knew the dopers would know.
