Just curious about coax

[kenlani]

I know nothing about electronics but am puzzled

--Why use a coax cable from dish to receiver... if the sat is sending digital and the receiver is receiving digital wouldnt it be best to have a digital cable?

--why is is best to use a digital audio cable to my surround sound amp when the receiver is getting its signal through the coax cable? Does the receiver improve the signal it receives via coax and upconvert it to digital optical?

As I said, I dont know anything about electronics, but it seems that the coax cable is the weak link in the system--do we lose anything (audio or video) between dish and receiver?

Thanks, and hope ya dont mind the dumb question

[veryoldschool]

I know nothing about electronics but am puzzled

--Why use a coax cable from dish to receiver... if the sat is sending digital and the receiver is receiving digital wouldnt it be best to have a digital cable?

--why is is best to use a digital audio cable to my surround sound amp when the receiver is getting its signal through the coax cable? Does the receiver improve the signal it receives via coax and upconvert it to digital optical?

As I said, I dont know anything about electronics, but it seems that the coax cable is the weak link in the system--do we lose anything (audio or video) between dish and receiver?

Thanks, and hope ya dont mind the dumb question
The signal is digital encoded RF, so coax is the best cable. The receiver then decodes the "digital" and processes it.
As for the audio, the coax has the bandwidth to handle the square wave digital over one cable.
"Old network" cables were coax, before they moved to multiple twisted pairs.

[Ken984]

The signal IS digital the copper does not discriminate analog or digital works just fine.
The signal is decoded into parts coming down the coax from the dish at the receiver and separated into, encryption, audio, video, guide data....etc. But its not analog until it gets to the video circuits in the receiver and even then if you use HDMI its still digital until the tv gets it.

[phat78boy]

The transmission of data from SAT to reveiver over coax is all digital. Many people associate analog to coax, but that is incorrect. Its all about the transmission codec being used between the two sources. This is why digital cable can be used over existing home coax, but needs a digital box to do the decoding.

As for your surround sound, connection preferences are really up to you and what type of format you are trying to use. For example, DTS or Dolby digital might not work over digital cable, but will with optical. HDMI is another example of this. The new DTS and Dolby audio specs will only work thru and HDMI connection.

Coax is not a weak link, it can actually pass huge amounts of data. The bottleneck is almost always the transmission type.

[old7]

I know nothing about electronics but am puzzled

--Why use a coax cable from dish to receiver... if the sat is sending digital and the receiver is receiving digital wouldnt it be best to have a digital cable?

Technically, in this case, the coax is a digital cable. Further coax has the bandwidth to carry the signal from the dish to the receiver.

--why is is best to use a digital audio cable to my surround sound amp when the receiver is getting its signal through the coax cable? Does the receiver improve the signal it receives via coax and upconvert it to digital optical?

The receiver decodes the signal into a digital signal. The reason that you can use a thinner digital cable from the receiver to your HDTV is that the bandwidth of the signal is substantially smaller. Again, the receiver decodes the signal and can send out digital audio over optical.

As I said, I dont know anything about electronics, but it seems that the coax cable is the weak link in the system--do we lose anything (audio or video) between dish and receiver?

Without coax the system would not work as well as it does now.

Thanks, and hope ya dont mind the dumb question

There is only one dumb question, the one you don't know the answer to and don't ask. (I think this is a left-over from high school math.)

[davring]

Like VOS said, Coaxial cable, carries RF (radio frequencies), this is what coax is designed for, it insulates the radio waves from external unwanted RF. The RF is the media which carries the digital data to your tuner to be decoded and broken into usable segments, audio, video, guide data, etc.

[K4SMX]

If you'd like to become fairly well-educated about cable issues, please check out the Index to Articles (http://www.bluejeanscable.com/articles/index.htm) on the Bluejeans Cable website. They are technically accurate, yet written for the every day user.