Hook up question....S-Video, Optical, Composite

[Bigpeat]

Looking for the best way to connect all components ....I'll try to make this as easy as possible.

Components:

Sony 32" TV ( 1- S-Video in, 1- Composite in )
Sony STRD-A5 Receiver ( 4- Optical in, 4- S-Video in, 8- Composite in, etc..)
Sony SLV-N80 VCR ( 1- Composite in, 1- Composite out)
Sony DVP S570D DVD ( 1- Optical out, 2- S-Video out)
Tivo / SAT (dual tuner) ( 1-Optical out, 1- S-Video out, 2- Composite out)

What I am trying to achieve:

1) Being able to watch and hear TV / Tivo wwithout the receiver being on.

2) Being able to watch VCR without the receiver being on.

3) Have the option to watch and hear TV / Tivo through the receiver

4) Record from Tivo to VCR.


Question:

1) Should I run everything through the receiver then from the receiver to the TV ?
a) I am guessing that you will need the receiver to be on for this to work

2) DVD has a Component out and receiver has Component in but TV has only S-Video in. Should I even bother using the Component since the S-Video will be the weakest link in the chain?

3) If I run Component and S-Video, what will it default to ?


Possible connection: Open for advice.

1) Run the Tivo and the DVD into the Receiver using optical and S-Video.

2) Run the Tivo into the VCR using Composite.

3) Run the Tivo into the TV using Composite

4) Run the VCR into the Receiver using Composite

5) Run the S-Video from the Receiver to the TV.

[paulh]

From what I've heard, there is little difference between S-video and component for non-HDTV's. The extra conversion done by your receiver (if it even does a conversion) would likely degrade the signal.

Personally, I use the better connections solely through the receiver, and if I do not want to bother with the receiver, I am using the old Coax on ch3/4. Otherwise it sounds like your setup would be OK.

[scooper]

Much the same - my Sony 27 inch set has 1 S-Video, and a couple composite inputs and some composite outputs. I Watch the primary satellite via S-Video / audio in direct to the TV, and use Video in 3 from the monitor composite output on my A/V receiver. Any other inputs go through the A/V receiver (2nd satellite, VCR, DVD, a/v from PC) I also use UHF modulators.

[SrJ]

Just a guess also, you can't hook component to the reciever and have the reciever output on s-video, MOST recievers will not handle that, they don't do any processing on the video, which includes changing it to a different format (the composite, s-video, and component busses are all separate).

To do what you want I'd hook the coax out of tivo to the vcr, vcr coax out to the tv (it does have a coax in right?). That gives you the ability to watch either without the reciever on. Then hook the dvd and tivo through svideo to the reciever, hook the vcr through composite through the reciever and run a composite and svideo cable to the tv.


You do know that you can program the tivo remote to turn on the reciever and tv at the same time and to control the volume on the reciever? (that's how I set it up)

-Jordan

[bonscott87]

I just gotta ask...*why* would you want to consider watching stuff without the receiver being on? Seems like a waste to me. I have my 5.1 surround system hooked up for a reason, to use it! :D

Obviously the easiest thing to do is hook everything to the receiver and then the receiver to the TV. Then just switch inputs on the receiver and that's all you have to do to switch between both video and audio sources. Much more wife friendly too.

Most receivers can only have one output so if you use S-Video from receiver to TV then all inputs on that link must use S-Video. Oh, and S-Video is TONS better in quality then plain old composite.

So I would do this:
Reciever: S-Video to TV
DVD and Tivo: S-Video to receiver. Switch to your S-Video input on TV to see these feeds.

Tivo: Composite to VCR.
VCR: Composite directly to TV. Swith TV input to the composite input to view tapes or Tivo without the receiver being on.

You real limiting factor here is that you don't have more inputs on your TV. If you had one more composite input then I would do this in addition to the above.
Reciever: Composite to 2nd composite input on TV
VCR: Use 2nd composite output to receiver. This way you could also watch the VCR using the receiver.

Whatever you do, don't use Coax as the quality is terrible compared to the other forms of hookups.

[nuke]

You won't be able to achieve your goal of watching stuff without the reciever, other than the TV itself.

Your TV only has one input. If it's like a lot of Sony's, just having something plugged in on the S-Video input *disables* the composite input. Aggravating, because mine does this too.

So, in my setup, which is very similar to yours, I have the TV set programmed as fixed on video 1. This helps her from getting confused. :)

The Tivo, DVD and SVhs vcr all come into the reciever on S-Video. The receiver does the switching. I upgraded my older Sony to a Pioneer to get more s-video, but the situation is about the same.

90% of the time, we watch the Direct Tivo, with the sound coming in on optical. Luckily, the Tivo remote is pretty much the one-stop for everything except turning the receiver on/off. It does control the volume on the receiver and we get locals on the tivo.

The receiver remote is capable of controlling everything else in the system for when we watch DVD or VCR. The VCR could also potentially be the TV tuner if we wanted to watch OTA channels for some reason.

Also the receiver automatically pipes the active source to the VCR, so we can dub to tape. Although I hooked up a FireWire DV-Bridge to the Tivo for that, so I can go direct to computer and burn DVD's from there.

[Bigpeat]

I just gotta ask...*why* would you want to consider watching stuff without the receiver being on? Seems like a waste to me. I have my 5.1 surround system hooked up for a reason, to use it! :D

Obviously the easiest thing to do is hook everything to the receiver and then the receiver to the TV. Then just switch inputs on the receiver and that's all you have to do to switch between both video and audio sources. Much more wife friendly too.

Most receivers can only have one output so if you use S-Video from receiver to TV then all inputs on that link must use S-Video. Oh, and S-Video is TONS better in quality then plain old composite.

So I would do this:
Reciever: S-Video to TV
DVD and Tivo: S-Video to receiver. Switch to your S-Video input on TV to see these feeds.

Tivo: Composite to VCR.
VCR: Composite directly to TV. Swith TV input to the composite input to view tapes or Tivo without the receiver being on.

You real limiting factor here is that you don't have more inputs on your TV. If you had one more composite input then I would do this in addition to the above.
Reciever: Composite to 2nd composite input on TV
VCR: Use 2nd composite output to receiver. This way you could also watch the VCR using the receiver.

Whatever you do, don't use Coax as the quality is terrible compared to the other forms of hookups.



As far as why I am trying to achieve this certain hook up is for simplicity...........for the wife.

When im not home, she would rather watch the TV in the kitchen then in the Family room, she uses the simple remote vs. the Sony RM-AV3000, and she watches VHS instead of DVD. Personally, I agree with you. I bought all the components to USE ! So as far as most of you know, marriage is a myriad of compromises.

Following your hook up suggestion, my RCA TV has multiple inputs and channels to correspond to them. Channel 90 is for S- Video, channel 91 is for input 1 (composite)

Since my Tivo has a dual receiver, what do you think of this scenario...?

Hooking it up exactly as you suggested but instead of:

VCR: Composite out to TV
Tivo: Composite out to VCR

maybe......

VCR: Composite out to Receiver (able to watch Dolby Digital VHS tapes)
Tivo: Composite out #1 to VCR (able to record from Tivo to VCR)
Tivo: Composite out #2 to TV (able to watch / hear Tivo on the TV via tuner #1)
Tivo: S-Video and Optical to Receiver (able to watch / hear Tivo via Receiver via
Tuner #2 this will also allow recording one show from Tivo to VCR while
Watching another channel via the receiver)


Another few questions come into mind:

1) Since the video signal is carried from the Dish to the Tivo via coax then from the
Tivo to the Receiver and TV via S-video doesn’t the "weakest link" rule
apply ? I hear S-Video is so much better then coax but I would assume that is
only true when it is S-Video out to S-Video in.

2) Since the Tivo has both composite out and S-Video out, I would run one of the
composite outs from the Tivo directly to the TV and the S-Video from the Tivo to
the Receiver then from the receiver to the TV. Would I be able to see the
difference in composite and S-video by switching from the TV's S-video input to
the composite input ?

[tivosmart]

1) Being able to watch and hear TV / Tivo wwithout the receiver being on.


Your receiver has several inputs for S-Video/Composite and etc. I would recommend you to stick with the receiver, but another possibility is to go to Radio Shack and buy one of their Video Switches. I had to buy it because my receiver is kind of old and I needed 2 S-Video outputs, one to go directly to my TV and the other to go to my home theather PC. My receiver didn't provide it, so I bought the one that has 4 inputs and 2 outputs, plus it has "remote learning" capabilities, so it's very natural to use it and it doesn't bother at all.

Another thing it has is composite-to-SVideo conversion and I'm not a video specialist myself but I have the impression that the picture from converted composite improves a bit compared to if I plugged composite directly to the TV.

The unit I bought sells for $40 (I don't remember the part number but it's pretty easy to find at Radio Shack) and they have another cheaper one for less if you don't need the 2 outputs.

So now I use my receiver only when I want 5.1 or if I want to apply special effects to stereo sound, for normal viewing I don't bother to turn it on anymore.