Home Theater for Dummies? Nope...Try "...for an idiot.

[kellyron500]

Give me time, I could land a man on Mars...but alas I am a weekend warrior; noob; idiot, etc...I am sure there are quick responses to this....

I just built a nice entertainment center and a buddy gave me a Yamaha HTR-5730 (HTIB...I guess)...I understand it is a little old, no HDMI, but it's an AV receiver and the speakers are white, as is my entertainment center, so esthetically, I like it (not to mention FREE).

Brought it home and stared at it for awhile....tried a few things, bottom line: NO JOY.

Here is what I have:

Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR cable box though XFinity/Comcast running HDMI to a 6 month old Zenith 42 inch flat screen and an XBox 360 running from the game to the TV through cables. That's it...no other auxiliaries for now.

The receiver has no HDMI connections and the TV has no other "OUT" other than the optical audio...everything is AV or something "IN", so I ran out an bought an optical cable from Radio Shack and ran it from the TV straight to the receiver...still nada. Went into the TV's setup and selected "Sound from TV Speakers, Yes or No" and selected no....XFinity has taken away a lot of the setup options that were there when it was pure Comcast so I don;t know if there was something there I COULD have done a year ago.

Anyway, anyone have a simple answer for an idiot like me who feels the answer is right in front of me..so close I can;t see it????

 

[bikdav]

Here Is What I Ended Up Doing

Without seeing this in person, I can only offer a loose sugestion. Here is what I did. To get sound from the TV to the receiver, I connected the optical cable from the TV out to the receiver in. In other words, on my TV [an LG] I have an optical cable running from the TV to my av receiver. As soon as I made sure that the optical out from my TV was switched on, I had instant Dolby Digital or DTS surround sound. It works nearly flawlessly. My DVD recorder has HDMI out and I used that connection to my TV and a second optical connection to my av receiver. Apparently, that did the trick, because when I use the DVD recorder, I get fully operational surround sound. I haven't seen that DVR unit, but try it with just the HDMI connection only. If that fails [and if your DVR has an optical out], try hooking up an optical connection between your DVR and the receiver and see what that does. On my receiver, I have a "dedicted" TV and "dedicated" DVD optical connection. If yours is like that, things should be easy. If not, chances are that you can assign them to their tasks. Be ready to do some trial and error runs.

 

[Impelled]

See if you can find out how to reset the AV amp.
It may have some strange setup in it or even be corrupt.

 

[kellyron500]

Without seeing this in person, I can only offer a loose sugestion. Here is what I did. To get sound from the TV to the receiver, I connected the optical cable from the TV out to the receiver in. In other words, on my TV [an LG] I have an optical cable running from the TV to my av receiver. As soon as I made sure that the optical out from my TV was switched on, I had instant Dolby Digital or DTS surround sound. It works nearly flawlessly. My DVD recorder has HDMI out and I used that connection to my TV and a second optical connection to my av receiver. Apparently, that did the trick, because when I use the DVD recorder, I get fully operational surround sound. I haven't seen that DVR unit, but try it with just the HDMI connection only. If that fails [and if your DVR has an optical out], try hooking up an optical connection between your DVR and the receiver and see what that does. On my receiver, I have a "dedicted" TV and "dedicated" DVD optical connection. If yours is like that, things should be easy. If not, chances are that you can assign them to their tasks. Be ready to do some trial and error runs.

I think you are on to something I could not find on my TV setup - I ran the optical out from the TV to the AV optical In but got nothing. Went to my TV set and the only option I had was "Sound from TV Speakers - Yes/No" I chose no and dropped the sound on the TV but did not pick it up on the AV speakers. I thought that had to be it....if the sound was directed not to come from the TV speakers, where would it send it to? I assumed any outbound audio line...but nothing. I need to look further at the TV setup and see if I am missing something....

 

[kellyron500]

See if you can find out how to reset the AV amp.
It may have some strange setup in it or even be corrupt.

Thanks Impelled - I will look at that. It has an AM/FM Tuner as well...I hooked up the antenna and one of the speakers to the A side...in the search mode, the tuner found all my local stations, but I could get no sound to the speakers....this leads me to think the unit is bad but I wondered if I am missing something. Maybe a reset of some type?

 

[MDS]

I think you are on to something I could not find on my TV setup - I ran the optical out from the TV to the AV optical In but got nothing. Went to my TV set and the only option I had was "Sound from TV Speakers - Yes/No" I chose no and dropped the sound on the TV but did not pick it up on the AV speakers. I thought that had to be it....if the sound was directed not to come from the TV speakers, where would it send it to? I assumed any outbound audio line...but nothing. I need to look further at the TV setup and see if I am missing something....

The optical inputs on the receiver need to be assigned to an input selector (TV, Cable, DVD, etc). Most newer receivers allow you to assign any input to any input selector but some older receivers have fixed assignments - like optical input 1 is fixed to the 'DVD' input selector.

So check the input assignments on the receiver and select the input selector that is assigned to whichever optical input you are using.

 

[kellyron500]

The optical inputs on the receiver need to be assigned to an input selector (TV, Cable, DVD, etc). Most newer receivers allow you to assign any input to any input selector but some older receivers have fixed assignments - like optical input 1 is fixed to the 'DVD' input selector.

So check the input assignments on the receiver and select the input selector that is assigned to whichever optical input you are using.

Thanks MDS...this one has two inputs on the rear....TV/CBL and DVD below it. That's it. I am plugged in to TV/CBL and the selector on the front panel is dialed to TV/CBL.

I just got in from work so I think I will pull up the TV manual on line and see if I am missing anything.

The XFinity STB has an audio out optical as well...I ran that directly to the AV Receiver and I am almost sure I have to go through the cable box setup to assign the audio output by since XFinity took over Comcast, most of the box setup options seem to be gone.....grrrrrrrrrrrr.....

 

[kellyron500]

See if you can find out how to reset the AV amp.
It may have some strange setup in it or even be corrupt.

Impelled,

I looked up the reset process for the AV Receiver and it is pretty simple...but I have a question that may fall under the "duh" category....why would I ever need to "reset" my receiver???

I could see resetting a breaker or something...but resetting a receiver to factory specs???? Just curious....

 

[Impelled]

You arent resetting the hardware, you are resetting the hardwares configuration.
This is stored in memory and can be badly configured for your needs or the memory data may have corrupted, leading to a malfunction.

 

[kellyron500]

You arent resetting the hardware, you are resetting the hardwares configuration.
This is stored in memory and can be badly configured for your needs or the memory data may have corrupted, leading to a malfunction.

That makes incredible sense...or makes my head hurt...either way, I'll sop up as much info as you guys can give me, and bless your hearts for dong so, until Saturday at zero dark thirty when I will kneel in front of the entertainment center and the HTS to dive in again.

I am learning...thank you so much!!!!

 

[dpc]

I had a cheap Kenwood receiver I was running setup exactly how it sounds like you are wanting to set your system up. I was running my Dish receiver, PS3, etc. in to the TV and then running optical out from the TV to the receiver.

On that receiver the optical input was shared with an RCA input (I think on the DVD input) and there was a setting in the receiver that toggled between taking input from the optical or RCA input. So I just had to set the DVD input to use the optical input somewhere in the receiver's settings, then change the current input on the receiver to DVD so it would be playing sound from that input.

 

[bikdav]

Yep.

I had a cheap Kenwood receiver I was running setup exactly how it sounds like you are wanting to set your system up. I was running my Dish receiver, PS3, etc. in to the TV and then running optical out from the TV to the receiver.

On that receiver the optical input was shared with an RCA input (I think on the DVD input) and there was a setting in the receiver that toggled between taking input from the optical or RCA input. So I just had to set the DVD input to use the optical input somewhere in the receiver's settings, then change the current input on the receiver to DVD so it would be playing sound from that input.

I forgot about that. That might be a big part of the problem right there. My old Onkyo TX-SR503 is like that.

 

[dpc]

It's odd that you're not getting any sound when trying the radio though. I just found a picture of the front of that receiver on the internet and it looks like there's a button on the left hand side labeled "Speakers A/B/Off". You've probably tried this, but just in case you haven't, I would try pressing that button to cycle through until it selects the one you've connected your speakers to.

 

[kellyron500]

I had a cheap Kenwood receiver I was running setup exactly how it sounds like you are wanting to set your system up. I was running my Dish receiver, PS3, etc. in to the TV and then running optical out from the TV to the receiver.

On that receiver the optical input was shared with an RCA input (I think on the DVD input) and there was a setting in the receiver that toggled between taking input from the optical or RCA input. So I just had to set the DVD input to use the optical input somewhere in the receiver's settings, then change the current input on the receiver to DVD so it would be playing sound from that input.

Thanks - it has to be something along these lines....I was also reading that the receiver should be off when you hook up the speakers...I did just the opposite - sat down, turned on the unit and then tried hooking up the speakers...this is the only thing I can logically think of that would not allow the tuner to play through the speakers...like a serial cable in a PC, you need to boot the unit with the cable in the first time?????