Connection?

[mayho]

It's the newbie again. I was all set to order some cables from Blue Jeans when I read on their site that S cable couldn't support any format above 480p. I have 1080I and want to get the most out of it. My current hookup is:

Direct TV to TV --->HDMI (output #4)
DVD to receiver S-cable/rca jacks for audio
receiver to TV S-cable (for dvd) output#3
Receiver to Direct tv Optical audio cable
CD player to receiver--->rca jacks

Somewhere along the way I lost the ability for my receiver to switch the video signal. Prior to this I was using a composite video cable and never had to switch inputs on my old tv.

Should I run componet cables and digital audio cables to everything that will support it? will I get better picture/ sound quality if I do? The digital optical cable from my DTV to the receiver sounds great. Can I get back to having the receiver switch the video? Thanks for your continued help, I'm going broke!!! Mayho

 

[MDS]

If your receiver can transcode from one video format to another (composite or s-video to component OR composite, s-video, component to HDMI) then it won't matter what video format you use from each device. That doesn't seem to be your case, so...

You must use the least common denominator; ie the highest format that all devices you want to switch can use. For HD signals (720p, 1080i) you must use component or HDMI.

 

[mayho]

Thanks for your response. Is component better than HDMI? will I see the difference?

How can I set up my TV so that the receiver handles the video and I don't have to change inputs? Thanks again.

 

[MDS]

I don't currently use HDMI so I can't say for sure but I doubt there would be a noticeable difference between component and HDMI.

If you use component video from the DVD player to the receiver and component video from the receiver to the TV, then when you press DVD on the receiver it will automatically switch audio and video at the same time. If you have other devices that also use component video (like a cable box), hook it up to the receiver too and it will switch that as well.

If other devices don't have component video, then you can't get the auto switching for them unless the receiver is capable of transcoding to component video and I don't know off-hand if your Integra can do that or not.