My cable box and my receiver...what am I'm getting? (1 Viewer)

[Andre Barros]

Here is the deal, I never cared to hook up my VCR to my receiver because I can't remember the last time I rented a VCR tape. I use my VCR mainly to record any shows I might want to watch when I come home from work. I have a cable box that the cable company provides and it has 3 outputs, antena cable, RCA video and RCA audio so seems to me that this cable box is mono, right? It might not be since I believe you can get stereo through antena cable so I'm guessing.

Last week I decided to hook-up my VCR to the receiver and run the cable signal through it. I used to have the TV going directly into the receiver using RCA cables but with that set-up the volume on the speakers varied according to the volume of the TV and that bothered me. Because of that I decide to do it through the VCR.

Now I have an antena cable going from the cable box to the VCR and L and R RCA going from the VCR to the receiver. This way I solve the volume problem but I must have the VCR on to get the signal through to my receiver.

Last night Panic Room was on HBO and they advertise at the beggining that the movie is DD 5.1. I know of course that I'll not be getting DD from that cable box but I hoped for something that I could apply PL II to, but it doesn't seem to be the case. When the TV was hooked directly to the receiver I would get sound on all 5 channels when watching TV with PL II now that it goes through my stereo VCR I only get sound on the center channel, why could this be happening? ANy thoughts?

Thanks in advance,

Andre

 

[Johnny Ayala]

Does the cable box have a red and a white RCA audio output? does the VCR? Is the VCR Hi-Fi? The only way you'll be able to get DD 5.1 out of your cable box is if it has optical or coax audio outputs.

 

[Andre Barros]

No, the Box only has 1 video and 1 audio RCA output so I'm using the antena output because that way at least my TV seems to recognize the stereo signal.

Yeah, I know I won't get DD out of this cable box but at least stereo.

But I think I figured it out, I'll check the VCR settings during lunch today.

Thanks

 

[Andre Barros]

Well, it turns ou that the VCR had the SAP option chosen instead of stereo. Now that the VCR is set to stereo I can turn on PLII and get a decent performance.

 

[JamesCB]

I used to have the TV going directly into the receiver using RCA cables but with that set-up the volume on the speakers varied according to the volume of the TV and that bothered me.

Is there a setting on your TV menu for turning off the external speakers and setting the output to "fixed". Or is there outputs on the back of the TV labled "monitor out" and/or "variable/fixed out"? This is common on stereo TV's. You could find out a way to get a fixed line-level signal from your TV to the receiver. That way you won't have to bother with the VCR at all.

 

[Andre Barros]

James,

Unfortunatelly that option is not available on my TV. My friend's Sony Wega has that option where the output is fixed when you turn the speakers off. In my case I only have the option of turning them off but there is no way to have a fixed output.

Regards,

Andre