Newbie question for htr set up (1 Viewer)

[jmrock]

Hi,

Just bought a new Samsung 46" LCD TV with Panasonic home theater (HDMI DVD player). Havent received the items yet, but was wondering what would be the best set up for optimal video and sound. I also have an HD cable box that I am using with the system. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

 

[Charlie Campisi]

Welcome to the forum!

Check here for speaker placement. Dolby Labs.

Read the Primer/FAQ for connections. Most will advise to not go crazy spending on wire/cables. You may want to beef up your speaker wire a little bit and Home Depot carries good 14 gauge wire in bulk. For connections, anything with decent build quality will do as long as it's rated for the application you need. Try www.cablesforless.com, www.partsexpress.com, www.bluejeanscables.com or www.monoprice.com.

Essentially, you will connect your dvd player to your tv with the hdmi. You also need to get the audio from your cable box to your HT so you can watch cable tv with your surround sound on. You can either run a digital cable from your tv's audio out to the HT receiver. Or you can run a digital cable from your cable box to the HT receiver. Either way works. Experiment with both to make sure there is no audio delay. You may have to go into the cable box or tv menu to make sure that the audio output is set to bitstream or dolby digital and not pcm. I'm assuming your cable box is HD. If it's not, you could just run analog cables (red/white audio) to make the connection, but you won't be getting surround sound from your receiver. Are you going to be using the built in HD tuner in your tv (if it has one)? If so, then you should run the digital cable from the tv to the HT receiver so you can get surround sound from broadcast tv.

 

[jmrock]

Great, thanks for the help.

One more question......If I am connecting the HDMI cable from my dvd player to the TV, is there any need to use the component video cables? I'm assuming that I would have to use digital audio cables to connect from the tv to the dvd player or cable box.

 

[Charlie Campisi]

No. Unless you get an HD cable box, in which case you'd need to connect the cable box's video to the tv. You could also do it to compare the picture. Most cannot tell the difference between video over hdmi and component. But some swear they can.

 

[dynamicavs]

I think the difference between the 2 cables is more distinct depending on the type of tv. I see a huge difference on my television between the 2 and I have a JVC HD-ILA but most of the installs I do on plasma or LCD the difference isnt so much. Just remember to use good cables