Got my new h/t. Need help asap, pronto, right away (kind of confusing). (1 Viewer)

[Dan Whalen]

Please excuse my lack of h/t grammar, as I'm not yet well schooled in h/t. I got my x-mas present early. A Kenwood HTB-504. I got the speakers set up and connected, but I have no rca's to run from the receiver. My tv is a Philips Magnavox 19". It doesn't have any jacks on the back, only one video and one audio on the front. Do I just run a single male rca from the video jack on the front to the "moniter out" on the receiver? Also, the instructions for the Kenwood says video deck. I assume that mean vcr? Anyway, it shows on the Kenwood directions that you run a single male (single on both ends) from the "video in" on the vcr (or video deck) to the "video 1 out" on the receiver, and a single male from the "video out" on the vcr to the "video 1 in" on the receiver. On the audio side it shows running a single male on one end from the "audio in" on the vcr to a dual male on the other end to the "rec out" on the receiver, and a single male end from the "audio out" on the vcr to a dual male on the other end to the "play in" on the receiver. By single male on one end and dual male on the other end I mean that there is a single male connector on one end of the rca, and a dual male connector on the other end of the rca cable (for those who are confused by my lack of terminology ). HOWEVER, on the directions for my vcr, it shows only one male end running from the "audio out" on the vcr to a dual male end to the "audio in" on the receiver, and a single male from the "video out" on the vcr to a single male to the "video in" on the receiver. Should I go with what the directions on for the Kenwood says? Sorry for the long rambling post, but I don't want to spend a buttload of money on cables only to have the wrong thing. Thanks in advance and if anyone needs more detail just tell me and I'll give them to you the best that I can. Thanks again.
Dan

 

[Wes]

Dan, It looks as if you have a Mono VCR and a TV that has just the one RCA inputs "which are located in the front" is this correct? If so what you will want to do is ask Santa to look alittle harder in his slaigh for a HiFi stereo VCR and a DVD Player!

But with the equipment you have you will want to run the single male RCA out of the VCR audio out to a "Y" splitter RCA and into the Reciever's "Video 1" inputs Red and White jacks. The video will travel through a single male RCA cable to the receivers "Video 1" input on the Yellow jack. Then from the recievers "Out to Monitors jack a single male RCA to the video input on the front of the TV. No audio cable to the TV!

Now by running a Mono VCR you will not be able to hear any surround sound. This requires Stereo and or Digital 5.1 inputs from a HiFi VCR, Satelite system/cable or DVD.

Hope this helps!

Wes

 

[Anthony Stephan]

THe good news is that the 504 is a very good little theater in-a-box. The bad news is that Wes is correct.

You really can't take advantage of the system using Dolby Digtal or dts without a DVD player and you can't even get Dolby Pro Logic or take advantage of the Pro Logic II without a hi-fi VCR.

Welcome to the insane world of this hobby.

 

[Dan Whalen]

Thanks guys. I'm getting the Panasonic RV-31 for x-mas also, so I don't really need to worry about the vcr. I think I'm gonna stick with getting dvd's. But the Panasonic will give me surround sound, right? Please tell me it will. Thanks again.

Dan

 

[dougW]

I looked at Panasonic's website, and it looks like it has optical out, for 5.1 audio, but I didnt' see mention of digital coax output. So, keep that in mind if that's the case when cable shopping-
Here's the link:
Link Removed
Lex

 

[Dan Whalen]

Yeah, I've been looking at the instructions and I saw that about the optical. Now, I've got more questions (maybe I should stick to car audio, b/c this stuff is confusing:b ). On the instructions for the receiver, it only shows a rca running from the "out" of the dvd player to the "video 2 in" on the receiver, and one rca from the "out" to a dual male "play in video 2" on the audio side. But, on the instructions for the dvd player, it shows a three male (both ends, supplied with the dvd player) rca running from the dvd player to the tv. One is the "video", no problem, but the other one is "audio L and R", but my tv only has a single "audio" jack. Since I'm running it through a receiver, do I need to hook the dvd player to the tv (the illustration for the HTIB doesn't show it that way)? Also, on the directions for running the dvd player to a receiver, as mentioned before, it shows to run an optical cable and that's all it shows. So is that all I do, run an optical cable from the dvd player to the receiver, or do I still have to hook the dvd player to the tv? If I do have to hook it to the tv, how? Is there a Y-splitter that has 2 female ends that go to a single male end, or what? Sorry for all the dumb questions, but this stuff is way over my head. If you need anything explained further, let me know. I really need to know how to hook this thing up, and the sooner the better. Thanks a bunch again.
Dan

 

[Brian Bunge]

Dan,

Let's take care of the easy stuff first, the TV! Connect a single video cable from the receiver's video out to the TV's video in. End of story. Do not worry about ANY audio connections to the TV.

Next, connect the video out from the DVD player to the video in on the receiver. If your receiver supports digital optical cable inputs then connect the optical output from the DVD player here. If your receiver doesn't have an optical input then you can only use the standard left and right analog audio outs from the DVD player to the receiver. This will not allow you to experience DD or DTS surround sound if this is the case. Otherwise, you should be good to go!

That's all there is to it. Just keep in mind that your receiver is the central hub for the system. All sources should connect to it and the receiver will do all the switching for you. Your TV should strictly be a video monitor.

I hope this helps!

Brian

 

[Dan Whalen]

Yes Brian, that helps tremendously. Yes, the receiver has the digital optical input (it's a Kenwood VR-507). So what I do is run an rca from the "moniter out" on the receiver to the "video in" on the tv, and the digital optical cable from the dvd player to the "cd/dvd optical" jack on the reciever? And then I run an rca from the "video out" on the dvd player to the "video in 2" on the receiver? Then do I hook up the vcr the same way as described above?

Doug-It shows in the instructions for the dvd player that to connect an amp w/ a built-in decoder or an amp/decoder combo (which I assume the Kenwood VR 507 is) to use an optical digital audio cable. What is the difference between optical out for 5.1 and digital coax output? What do I need to look for when buying this optical cable?

Thanks so much for your guys quick responses. Hopefully someone will answer these last questions before tomorrow night so I can go pick up the stuff I need after work and get this thing up and running here in the next day or so. Thanks a whole lot guys.

Dan

 

[Wes]

Yes hook your VCR up the way I stated above to the Video 1 input! Then hook up the Optical cable from the DVD player to the receivers DVD optical input. You will also need to run a RCA cable from the DVD players video out to the Receivers DVD video in jack.
Radio Shack sells Optical cables, I know the 3' one is around $25.
By hooking up the DVD player up the way I described you will be able to hear Dolby Prologic II, Dolby Digital 5.1 and also DTS audio tracks. When you do set all this up you might need to go into the DVD player set up "Menu" to select the Digital bit stream out puts in order to get the DD and DTS to go to the receiver. Then from the DVD disc Menu you will also need to select the audio track you wish to hear on that disc.
Now it get even more confusing!
Wes

 

[Dan Whalen]

Sweet. Thanks. Now (hopefully) I'll be able to get this thing running tomorrow. Thanks again for the help. I'll keep everyone updated on how it goes.

Dan