I Need Major Help.... (1 Viewer)

[JayKellen]

Hello everyone...If anyone can help me out, I would greatly appreciate it...I really do not know how to explain all of this, but I will do my best...My friend has a Sony Home Theater System, a Sanyo DVD player, and a 27 inch Sony Wega Flatscreen TV. He hooked up everything, but did not have a digital optical cable, which I told him he needs to optimize DTS and Dolby Digital (yes, I already went into the dvd menu and set up dolby digital and dts)...I let him try out my optical cable so he could listen to the incredible difference it makes, but when I went to plug it in, I noticed a lot of things wrong with his connections. I am going to try to explain how he has things set up, and if someone can tell us what we are doing wrong, God Bless you....

anyway, he currently has the red, white and yellow connectors hooked into his dvd audio outs, and these connect to his vcr audio and video ins. He also has his orange coaxial cord plugged into his vcr through the line out and connecting to his dvd player audio in.

He has nothing really hooked into his TV as far as audio and video cords go, and his receiver has nothing hooked into that either as far as video ins and outs go. He has room for optical video in, coaxial orange in, tapes, dvd, video 1 and 2, etc...I know some of these cords need to go into the Dvd audio ins right, and I know his coaxial cord is nowhere near where it needs to be...doesnt he have too many things plugged into his vcr??

I looked at all of this and knew something is definitely wrong, cause when i plugged in the optical cable from the receiver to the dvd, we could not get dts or dolby digital sound obviously....the only setting we could get to work was the cinema studio EX A or c.st.ex a for short...You should just hit the auto detection button on the remote to automatically detect the dts and dolby digital sounds, but all we have on the front display of the receiver is a pro logic option, so we know something is definitely not hooked up properly.

The negative is that the instructions for the receiver state that the following cables are NOT supplied...1. white and red audio cord 2. white red and yellow audio and video cord 3. yellow and yellow video cord 4. monaural audio black and black cord

A coaxial orange cord IS supplied, however, but the Sanyo DVd player does not have a jack for this cable to go into, it just has the optical, but the receiver has both.

I know this is wayyyy too confusing, but it is hard to explain in words what the problems are....We really hope someone can try to explain to us the best way possible if we already have the right cables, if we need more, how to get the dts and dolby digital sounds properly emitted, and basically, what we did wrong. Again, thanks to anyone who is going to volunteer their time to try to explain this to us.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Well, let's start from the top.

You tried to demonstrate digital audio by bringing over your own digital cable?

Here's what he should do:

Connect the DVD player directly to the WEGA with component-video cables. And if he wants occasionally to listen to the display's audio, he should connect the red and white audio cables between the player and the Sony.

Then there should be either an optical or a coaxial digital connection directly from the player to the receiver.

Make certain once again that the DVD player's ability to pass a DD and/or DTS signal is enabled.

And on the receiver, select the auto-detect function so that the processor defaults to whatever type of signal it's getting.

 

[John Garcia]

You CANNOT connect the DVD to the VCR because of Macrovision copy protection (unless you have a player that can disable this). You will get an image, but it will fade in and out or be distorted.


There is no such thing. Optical is audio only.

You say no video is connected to the TV or receiver...so you will get no picture.

I would disconnect EVERYTHING and start over, connecting and getting a single device to work at a time.

From the DVD: optical digital audio to the receiver, video to the TV or reciever then TV. No other connection is necessary unless you want to watch movies without the receiver on, then stereo analog audio should be connected to the TV. For the optical connection, you may have to go into the receiver's setup to tell it which input this particular source is to use.

What brand and model of each piece are we talking about, so that someone can help you better.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Given the info overload in the first post, I missed the part John noticed: You cannot route the DVD player through a VCR. As John notes, you're being given a rude introduction to Macrovision copy protection. It amazes me how many newcomers seem to think they can connect a DVD player through a VCR.

 

[JayKellen]

Again, I apologize for the long post, its just that my friend really wants everything hooked up right....

based on the cables I said were not included in his home theater (audio cord, audio/video cord, video cord) do we need to buy these or will the red, white and yellow cables we already have be fine? My friend would really like to have his VCR hooked up to his receiver as well, which is why I think they hooked up their DVD to the VCR in the first place, but what cables do we need to have both VCR and DVD hooked up to the receiver???

 

[Garrett Lundy]

Did this frankenstein hook-up ever work?

 

[Doug MacGregor]

Jay, I'm not sure why your friend wants to hook his VCR to his receiver - unless he just wants it to sound better ( or fuller). It has been my experience that video tape completely removes any DPL (Dolby Pro Logic) encoded information that comes from the source, be it cable or satellite.
If he just wants to have the VCR "in the loop", that's no problem. The DPL will pass thru a Stereo VCR.
At any rate, he can do it by connecting the audio outs on the VCR to the corresponding audio ins (analog RCA)on the receiver. Most receivers have several analog inputs such as TV or VCR. He will get no surround whatsoever or anything close to it from "taped" programming.
The only drawback to routing video thru the receiver and then to the TV is that you will have to turn on the receiver to see anything.
I suggest just connecting the video out (s-video or component) from the DVD player directly to the TV.
If he still wants to view programs coming from his source (cable or satellite) then simply connect the VCR s-video out (I'm assuming it has one) to the s-video input on the TV. Then select Video-1 to view the VCR or Video-2 to select the DVD.
That's it.

 

[Andrew O'Brien]

Actually SOME VCR's seem to work just fine with DVD's connected to them. A newly purchased Toshiba DVD player at my place of work is connected to the inputs of an RCA VCR and that connects to the TV. No Macrovision nasty screen is evident. In my experience it is always worth the try, 8 out of 10 times the Macrovsion issue crops up but every now and again one finds a DVD that seems not to be properly encoded with Macrovision protection.

Of course at home I disabled the Macrovsion in my DVD player, just for the sake of doing it. I'm lazy though and have never got around to actually taping a DVD, the quality would be just ugly anyway.

 

[JamesCB]

Dolby Pro-Logic is encoded in two-channel stereo sources. If you have a stereo signal, Pro-Logic will be decodable.

 

[John Garcia]

Dolby is not stripped out by the VCR, but if you do not have a stereo (hifi) VCR, you obviously cannot record the stereo information.

 

[JayKellen]

Thank you for all of your help...We got the system up and running correctly, and everything is hooked up the way it should have been in the first place.

 

[Doug MacGregor]

Sorry James, I meant to say "if you don't have a stereo VCR"
Thanks for the clarification.