Denon AVR-1712 hookup questions

[bowtieman81]

Hello all,

I recently was able to get a new Denon AVR-1712 reciever, but I have a couple questions regarding hooking it up. I have an older Sony TV and am trying to figure out the best way of getting the TV, cable box and receiver hooked up.

Here is link to the reciever to see the inputs/outputs:
Denon AVR-1712 Home theater receiver with 3D-ready HDMI switching at Crutchfield.com

Here is a link to my TV (I know it is old, but the budget won't allow a new one for another year):
Sony KDL-40S2010 40" BRAVIA™ LCD HDTV at Crutchfield.com

Here is a link to my cable box (I have the phase 2 version with no HDMI port):
How to use a Motorola DVR/Identifying your model - Wikibooks, open books for an open world


My first question is what is the best way to connect the cable box for both audio and video? Are component cables good enough or should I look into one of the DVI to HDMI conversion cables? My TV will only display 1080i resolution; it won't do 1080p.

Secondly, is there a way to connect everything so that I can watch cable TV without having to turn the reciever on (right now the video and audio go thru the receiver)?

My current connections are component cables from cable box to AVR along with a toslink from cable box to AVR. I was thinking about running the audio portion of the component cables into the TV first, then using the TV audio output and running that into the AVR. Is there any problems doing that?

Thanks in advance,
Pete

 

[Adam]

Hi, Pete. Is that cable box a rental, or do you own it? I'm asking because I'm wondering if you can get your cable company to upgrade your box to one with HDMI. If it's a rental, they certainly should. That could help simplify the connections a bit.

You can set it up so that you can watch TV without turning the receiver on. You can have one set of audio/video outputs from the cable box running to the receiver, and a second set running from the cable box to the TV. That wouldn't be a problem because your TV will accept multiple video inputs (one from your receiver, and another from the cable box). There might be an easier way, but from I see on that cable box, I think that a splitter for the component video might be best. You would run the optical audio from the cable box to the receiver as you have it, and run analog audio from the cable box to your TV.

 

[bowtieman81]

Adam,

Thanks for the quick response. I did not even think about asking to trade my cable box for an HDMI unit. I am going to look into that first. I will post back here once I get an answer.

 

[bowtieman81]

Update

I was able to trade in my older cable box for a new version that had an HDMI port. This works great and gives me exactly what I wanted. For any that may be interested all I did was run an HDMI cable from cable box to receiver; that covers sending audio and video to reciever and on to the TV.

In order to watch TV without needind the receiver on I just ran a set of component cables (with stereo audio) from the cable box directly to the TV. Now we can choose to watch TV with or without the receiver.

Thanks for the help.