Component outputs needed for AVR? (1 Viewer)

[Martin_Baucom]

I'm a newby and am about to purchase a modest home theater system. (Smallish room, and my audio system is set and will be positioned in another part of the house.) I was going to go with the Kenwood HTB-504, but now I realize that the receiver on that setup does not have any component jacks. Both my DVD player and television do have one.

To utilize this function (the television's S-video input will be used for digital cable, right? and how superior is component to S-video?) do I just bypass the receiver for video connections and go straight to the television (while running 5.1 audio through the receiver)? Or do I really need to find a receiver with component jacks?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Denward]

I think the short answer is that you do not need to worry about component jacks on your receiver.

Many people connect their DVD players directly to their TV using component cables. The other advantage of doing this is that you pass the component signal through 1 fewer pieces of equipment which eliminates 1 more source of signal degradation. Hopefully your TV allows switching between its component and svideo inputs so you can use the svideo for other sources.

Most, but not all, digital cable set top boxes (STBs) only have regular cable or composite video outputs. You may be one of the lucky ones that has svideo output. If your STB only has composite, chances are your receiver will not convert that composite input to svideo output.

Use coaxial or optical (aka toslink) to pass 5.1 audio from dvd player to receiver.

Difference between svideo and composite is dramatic. Going from svideo to component is supposed to be more subtle, but it depends on the type of TV you have. If you've got a big RPTV, then definitely go with component. Someone has quoted a magazine article that said svideo is better than composite by 20% and component is better than svideo by 5%. You may not notice that last 5% on a 36" tube tv.

If I get the bug to update my connections, I would do the following:

Composite: STB-->VCR-->Receiver-->TV

Component: DVD-->TV

S-Video: Receiver-->TV

Cable: STB-->TV

The svideo would be used only to see my receiver's onscreen display for occasional calibration purposes. The cable is so my wife wouldn't always have to turn on the receiver to watch regular TV. By the way, I have a 32" JVC D Series TV.

 

[Martin_Baucom]

thanks so much for the advice, denward!

 

[RobG]

I used an older generation Kenwood similar to yours and you could see a slight loss in picture quality going through the rec. I would say hook your video directly to your tv. I found that using comp. over s-vid on my hd set I could see a better color separation, if that makes sense.