Home Theater Setup-know anything?? PLS HELP

[LeStEr]

Ok i moved into my new house today and i bought a Home Theater package that consists of - Big Screen TV, 5 Speaker Surround + woofer, Dolby Digital Reciever, VCR, DVD and i think thats it. My friend and i opened everything up, i was very excited but this was about to change. Ok so first we connected all the speakers to the reciever and i think these connections are all correct all though we had to switch the cable for the woofer with one of the front speakers due to length issues, they were color coated - front left speaker was red+black adn woofer was brown+black, we switched these thinking nothing would be different. Then we connected the DVD audio, video , (forget what other thing is, what ever it is it is the third part of the cable) there white, red, yellow anyways to the reciever. We then connected the yellow,red,white from the VCR to the reciever, (on the vcr is was labeled "VCR In" and "VCR Rec" we stuck them in the holes under vcr in. Then we connected the antenna which is normal cable for me into the VCR and then connected the other Cable to my TV. No other connections were made to the TV, is this my problem?? Everything is plugged in to a power source and appears to be working but i cant get a picture on the DVD or hear sound from the TV or DVD on my surround speakers. Im kind of retarded when it comes to these things but it looked pretty straight forward.

Pls if u have anything to add to this do reply
Thnx
LeStEr


EDIT - Also , in one of the instruction books it said that only the vcr had to be hooked to the reciever and the dvd and reciever would work properly with the TV, was this incorrect?? if so what can i do to fix it.

 

[Raspewtin]

There are a ton of things that could have happened, mainly with connections. You could have hooked up positive to negative and vice versa w/ speakers, etc. That can damage speakers BTW. Check your connections carefully. If you're still stuck, try www.avsforum.com or hometheaterforum.com if you don't get a good answer here.

 

[LeStEr]

no its not + or - mixed up but its sure making me mad, i cant figure this out hmm

 

[Raspewtin]

<< No other connections were made to the TV, is this my problem >>



Well you do need a video cable running out (usually labelled TO MONITOR on your receiver) from the receiver to the TV or you won't be able to see your DVD or VCR. Use Super-Video cable if you have SVideo in on your TV. Did you do that?


Also you will need to hook up audio outputs from your TV to your reciever, unless you watch all your TV through VCR then you can just set your TV to MONITOR or INPUT and watch TV through VCR (assumming you did the step above)

 

[LeStEr]

ya i have a spot for SVideo but i dont have a cable for it, i have annother normal speak cable left over but thats it!

 

[LeStEr]

ok im looking at the reciever manuel and it has a spot that says &quot;MON OUT&quot; and then beside it, it says SVideo so is this most likly my problem, the TV is not Connected to the reciever directly in anyway so...also this isnt related to this particular problem but it says i need a special cable to take advantage of my &quot;True&quot; dolby surround sound from my Dvd is this SVideo or somthing different?

 

[Raspewtin]

You need a digital audio cable. they come into different types. You have to see which your DVD player needs (since your receiver will probably take both) One type is called optical digital cable or also called TOSLINK. The other is called coaxial digital cable. You can use any RCA cable for coaxially digital cable. Read your DVD player to see which digital out it supports, TOSLink or Coax (or maybe both). Then hook the other end to your reciever and read the receiver manual b/c you'll probably have to specifically select DIGITAL audio inputs for DVD, since otherwise, your reciever doesn't know if you want to use the Digital cable (with Dolby Digital) or the regular L/R (red and white) RCA cables (no Dolby Digital).

 

[LeStEr]

i also have a cable that has a little red light on each end and also on each end is like the exact same as the end of head phones , same kind of thing u would put in a headphone jack, what would this be for?

 

[Raspewtin]

<< i also have a cable that has a little red light >>



It may appear to look like it fits in headphones, but if it's super thin, and the ends are squarish, it could be an optical digital cable. I'm heading out now, so good luck!

 

[LeStEr]

ok to be exact that cable with the lights or whatever is this - it has a headphone like thing at one end and then two cables split off of that and at the end of those there are red light things that are rectangle shaped and there is a film i can take off (i think) and i could stick them on somthing, what are these and what do they do?? are they those cablesn you were refering to?

 

[bcterps]

Ok here's your problem, you need to connect the Monitor Out on your receiver to your TV. From your post, there it looks like there are 2 ways to do this, one is through a a normal RCA connection (the same type of connection your are running your VCR to your receiver) which is usually yellow in color, or an S-Video connection, which would give you a better picture.

HOWEVER, it also depends on how your devices are connected to your receiver. It sounds like you used the normal RCA connections to connect your DVD and VCR to your receiver. If this is true, you MUST use the RCA connection to your TV. This will solve your problem of not getting a picture from the DVD player.

The second problem, getting sound from your TV on your surround speakers. You must have a set of Audio Out connections on your TV (not all TVs have this) and you have to connect them to your receiver, look at your manual to see where they should go.

A couple of other issues, your subwoofer and left speaker seemed to be hooked up wrong, the best way to hook up the subwoofer is through the Line Level inputs which should be connected to the LFE output on your receiver. If your cables are too short for the left speaker, you might have to buy more cable.

In order to take listen to Dolby Digital tracks, you need to connect the digital out from your DVD player to your receiver like Raspewtin posted. If you are just using the red and white RCA connections you are only going to be able to listen in Dolby Pro Logic.

--Ben

 

[LeStEr]

Ok, you say since i have a normal RCA connection with my VCR and TV i need one to my TV, so how would i go about doing that?

EDIT - ok you say that it is usually yellow in color so what and where would i need this connection?

 

[bcterps]

That headphone thing with the two red light things is an Infrared blaster which would allow you to control your Cable TV box (if you have one) or another device, like a VCR with only 1 remote. You would peel off the plastic and stick it over one of the infrared ports on your CATV box and then connect it to your receiver. This is most likely explained better in your manuals.

A word of advice, you should really read through all the manuals that you have, especially the one for your receiver, unless you totally know what you are doing, which in this case, you dont. I know I rarely read through manuals, but inevitably the answers are almost always in them.

--Ben

 

[bcterps]

You dont have a normal RCA connection under Monitor Out on your receiver? If you only have S-Video, then you'll have to use that, however, most receivers that I know of dont convert a regular RCA input into an S-Video output, if yours does, than you just need to connect the S-Video connection under the Monitor Out to your TV and you should be in business. I'm sure your TV has S-Video, if it doesnt then you are in a heap of trouble hehe.

--Ben

 

[LeStEr]

i thought i read through the reciever manuel quite closly but i must have missed somthing

 

[bcterps]

What is the make and model of your receiver, maybe I can look it up and give you some better help, its kind of hard to tell you what connections to look for since I dont have your manual hehe.

--Ben

 

[LeStEr]

i got a huge package including all ive listed same brand RCA reciever model is -RT2250 / RT22550R

 

[LeStEr]

ok as i look in my manual here i see there is a mon out rca connection, now the reciever came with rca cables but i have no clue where i may have connected them?? im so retarded and should of had someone experienced help me with this, but anyways i will probly end up getting an SVideo cable very soon but as for tonight i just want to watch some DVDs in the confert of this new stuff and in my new Lazy Boys!!!!

EDIT- now i think i have RCA connections between my DVD and VCR to the reciever right now, can i take the connection between the VCR and use those Cables to be my Mon Out RCA connection for tonight??

 

[bcterps]

Hmm well these are the connections that you could have used RCA connections for.

DVD to Receiver (red, white, yellow) however to get the most out of your dvd player you should use a digital audio connection (coax or toslink) and S-Video.
VCR to Receiver (red, white, yellow)
TV Audio Out to Receiver (red, white)
Monitor Out to TV (yellow)

The cables are all the same, the color is just used to show what function the connection has (red and white for sound, yellow for video). If you have run out of cables, a quick fix for tonight would be to unhook your VCR and use that cable to connect your receiver to your TV. You can go buy more cables tomorrow.

 

[LeStEr]

ok i think i have it figured out now but for the time being can i remove the RCA connection from my VCR to the reciever and make it the one for my Mon Out and audio / video for my TV?

EDIT - and im tired and retarded , sorry man did not see u explained this already

ALSO - Thank You very much for the help, it is greatly appreciated!

 

[bcterps]

<< ok i think i have it figured out now but for the time being can i remove the RCA connection from my VCR to the reciever and make it the one for my Mon Out and audio / video for my TV? >>



That should work fine. If you have more problems I'll be up checkin out the forums.

--Ben

 

[LeStEr]

ok i switched them arround and i get DVD picture thats a plus!!!!!! but no audio what so ever, not even on the TV!

EDIT - Ok this is what i have now setup on rca connections , The dvd to the reciever using again the RCA connection and then i have the TV to the reciever using an RCA connection, i dont know why audio isnt working

 

[bcterps]

Well you got a picture for the DVD, thats a start, now it looks like your receiver has assignable inputs for the sound on your DVD player. They might default to the coax or optical digital input but you are using the analog RCA inputs, check to see if you can change those settings.

--Ben

 

[bcterps]

The only reason I can think of for your audio not working is what I just posted about, unless all your speakers are hooked up wrong, which I doubt is the case. Let me know if you can assign the DVD audio connection on your receiver to the analog RCA connection instead of either the digital coax or optical connections.

--Ben

 

[LeStEr]

where would i check to see if i could change them??