Pat_DiLella

Need help with DVD/Digital Cable/Receiver connections

Looking for some help with connections from my dvd player and cable box to my receiver

Here is what I have

Receiver: Pioneer VSX-D711 ( bought used on Ebay about 2 months ago). Has 2 digital coax inputs and 1 optical input
DVD: Apex 1200 3 disc changer with 1 digital coax and 1 optical output
Cable Box: Digital Cable with 1 coax output
JVC 56” RPTV

Right now I have it connected as follows

Digital cable box to receiver via coax cable, regular audio outputs patch cords to the tv
DVD to receiver via optical cable

I am having problems getting the sound from the DVD player. I programmed the receiver to reflect the DVD sound coming in via the optical input and changed the sound settings on the DVD player to SPF/RAW like it says to do in the instruction manual. If I play a CD in the DVD player the sound cuts in and out and if I put in a DVD I get no sound at all. The receiver switches in and out of digial mode when this is happening What could be causing this to happen? Could it be a bad optical cord or something? Also do I have to connect the red/white audio patch cords to the receiver also or is the optical or digital coax connection all I need to get sound from the dvd?

The other problem I am having is when I put on the music channels on the digital cable I can get the sound through my receiver fine. However if I change the channel to a non music channel on the cable box I get no sound at all through the reciever.

thanks

Matthew D

I cannot help with your DVD problem.

But as far as digital cable is concerned, most channels below 100 are analog, not digital so no sound is output via the digital coax. If you want to get sound from your A/V receiver on the analog channels, you will need to connect the analog cables from your cable box to your receiver. Otherwise you will have to use your TV speakers for viewing the analog channels.