I need help before my new receiver depletes me of my sanity!

[ForeverAutumn]

I have wasted an entire day trying to set up my new receiver so that the TV plays through my HT speakers. I thought that these new HD receivers were supposed to make life simpler, but I am just about ready to return this stupid receiver and hook my old red and whites back up.

I got the receiver working through the ARC connections, but it completely disabled the TV speakers so that if we're watching TV we have no choice but to have the receiver on. With our old receiver we could choose the TV speaker or another output.

I went back to Best Buy this afternoon and bought an optical audio cable. I now have the receiver set up to the TV through an HDMI cable and the optical audio cable. But still no sound through the speakers...only through the TV.

I don't know if I'm missing a connection or a setting. I've been searching the internet for answers and getting nowhere. The Denon manual (http://manuals.denon.com/AVRS700W/NA/EN/GFNFSYbtdxzhxd.php)has turned out to be pretty useless.

How do I set this up so that I can choose my speakers? Or is this even possible? I'm seriously ready to return it and go back to my old JVC receiver. Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated. I can't help but feel that I'm missing something really simple. I'm fed up and not prepared to spend much more time on this.

Thanks!

[Mr Peabody]

I'm probably not going to be much help, I know my brother drove em crazy with his Denon. The ARC is to hear the TV sound through the receiver, so if you just want to watch TV and have the receiver off, disable the ARC. You shouldn't need both an optical & HDMI. The HDMI that feeds the video from the Denon to the TV becomes a 2-way street so to speak with ARC on, being able to send audio from the TV to the Denon. Really, I'd run HDMI from your cable box and BDP to the receiver for the audio when the receiver is on, and when it's off just use the TV speakers as normal.

The ARC is handy for those using an antenna or using the TV as to switch sources opposed to the HT receiver. ARC is really for a sound bar, IMO.

[blackraven]

I have a friend that just bought a Samsung 4K curved TV and a Marantz receiver. He had the same problem. He hooked the TV sound with an optical cable from the TV to the Marantz and finally got it to work. He ditched the HDMI. Make sure you go into the TV menu and set it to external speakers.

[Jack in Wilmington]

FA did you try the "Ask and Answer" feature on the LG website? I've had real good luck with these features on other websites lately. I recently used it on Verizon's website to take care of a billing problem that had been going on since August. You also said you were going to fiber optics soon if I remember right. Maybe the installer will be some help as they probably run into all sorts of problems.

[Mr Peabody]

Although my original post has still good basic info I did misread your problem. Taking audio from your sources to the receiver is how I prefer to get the sound to the HT. However, if you want to go from the TV, optical will work but whatever optical input on the Denon you choose you may have to go inside the receiver set up menu and set it to "optical # whichever you are using". The Denon will be factory set for each input to what they think may be the most popular combo but many times you have to set it again for your particular use. For instance, the input on front may say "Digital 1" you may have to go into "Digital 1" on the set up menu of the Denon and select "optical" to tell it to pass the signal from that input. Or, the front/remote selector may actually say TV or DVD etc. often you have to go into the receiver's menu, select "TV" and select the audio/video input your going to use for TV.

If any of this helps and you would like a quicker exchange feel free to use my email link.

[ForeverAutumn]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'll play with this again a bit later today. I also found a support phone number on the piece of crap Denon quick start guide (Step 1, put batteries in remote. Step 2, connect to TV. Step 3, run through on-screen set-up). :rolleyes:

I don't think that we can connect the cable to the receiver as suggested in Mr. P's first post. If we do this then we will always require the receiver to be on when we watch TV. There is only one HDMI out from our cable box, so I think that it needs to connect to the TV and then have just the audio from the TV to the receiver (like with out old digital receiver).

My plan is HDMI from cable to TV. Optical Audio from TV to receiver. Then try to find the right setting to make it work.

The other challenge is that our BDP is pretty old and only has one HDMI port. So I think I'll have to use coax for the BDP to the receiver (like our old receiver).

Other than being satellite ready, I'm really starting to wonder what benefit I'm getting from the new receiver. Maybe I should have done more research first.

[ForeverAutumn]

IT WORKS!!! You guys RAWK! A special thanks to Mr. Peabody for his offer to email him. Thanks so much. I moved the HDMI cable from the ARC port to a regular port. I don't know whether this made a difference or not but I was wondering whether the ARC port was interfering with using any other audio input. Then I went into the settings and played around until I found the Input Settings menu. The TV audio was already showing Optical but I changed it and then changed it back to be sure.

When I went back to the TV and changed the audio setting from TV to external speakers I finally had sound!

I still haven't tested the BDP or the surround settings, but at least the TV works the way we want it to. I just knew that I was missing something fairly simple...I think it was the Input settings.

[Jack in Wilmington]

We have that type of setup. We have the cable box and the BDP running with HDMI cables to two of the HDMI In connections on the receiver. The HDMI Out connects to the HDMI In on the TV. We do use the receiver whenever we watch TV, but that's because we prefer the sound of the 3.0 speaker setup to the television speakers.