Please Help Me Set Up My HT (1 Viewer)

[TylerDFranklin]

Hey everyone. I'm completely new to true HT, although I've always been obsessed with good sound and video. I just purchased a whole HT system and now I'm trying to hook everything up and I was hoping maybe some of you could help me. I'll tell you what all I'm doing and any suggesstions would be very helpful. Thank you.

Well, I just purchased a Toshiba 56HM195 TV, a Toshiba D-VR4X DVD Recorder/VCR, complete Klipsch Synergy audio system (2 F-2 floor speakers, S-10 sub, c-2 center, 2 s-2 surround) and a Sony STR-DE898 Receiver. I tried to do as much research as possible before choosing these components. One important thing to me is the ability to hook up my computer to the TV and use it as a monitor as well. I wish I had a way to insert my wiring diagram, but I'll try to describe it as best possible.

All the wires are Monster cable (everywhere I've read said they're the best)

From my computer to tv is a DVI to HDMI cable into one HDMI port on TV.
From the sattelite, I have an HDMI cable going to the 2nd HDMI port on TV.
From DVD player, component video cable going to TV, fiber optic sound cable going to receiver.
From TV, fiber optic sound cable going to receiver.

The only thing I'm unsure about is what cable to hook the sound card from my computer to the receiver. I have an X-Fi sound card, so if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

Also, like I said, this is my first time setting anything like this up, so I'm unsure of anything I need to do beyond hooking up the cables. I've been reading around a little and saw where people were talking about calibrating the TV, but I'm not sure where I need to buy what I need to do this. If anyone could please send me a link for that and tell me anything else I need to do or just any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you all!

Tyler D. Franklin

 

[Brian Osborne]

Your Xfi card should have a single digital coax (RCA) cable for digical sound. prob be orange in color. that'd be the one to use.
As for calibrating the TV. you can get a pretty good calibration with a THX DVD. And check out the calibration that Windows Media Center comes with. It actually was really good.
Carefull what you say about Monster cable around here, your bound to start a fight. There are those that are strictly opposed to the high priced cable giant. I can't say I disagree, there are better custom cables available for the same or less price.
Everything you have looks good. You have 3 inputs utilized on your TV, but with a macro on your remote that won't be too much of a hinderence.

 

[TylerDFranklin]

Ok, thanks, will do. I've already bought the Monster cable (I sure wish I would've come on here and asked some questions before I paid so much for them, though) but is there a better way to hook everything up? Also, about the calibration dvd, where can I buy one at? And Window's Media Center? I have a laptop that has WinXP Media Center edition, but just have winXP on my main desktop. Thanks for your help.