TV Audio thru Home Theater question

[lakers05]

First off I appologize if this question has been answered here recently, I have not been able to find anything. I just installed an Onkyo HTS770 HTIB and replaced the stock speaker wire with 16 Gauge Soundking, along with a higher quality subwoofer cable. I have a digital optical wire connection between the DVD player and my receiver along with S-Video cables between the DVD player / receiver and receiver / Television. I receive my television signal from a Dish Network 522 box with dual tuners, but the actual box is located in another room so the only connection I have is the coaxial cable directly into the television. I have the television RCA audio outputs connected to my receiver so I'm able to listen to regular television stations thru my home theater.

The audio when playing a DVD is amazing, absolutely zero static/distortion. My problem occurs when viewing regular television, there is a faint hiss coming out of each speaker regardless of the listening mode selected (Dolby PL, Neo 6, TV Logic, etc.). Will this improve if I moved the satellite box into the room with the home theater and used the RCA / S-Video connections from the box directly to the receiver? The 522 Satellite box also has a digital optical audio output, will this improve the sound over the RCA connections as well (I realize only a few channels actually output Dolby Digital audio)? Any advice is greatly appreciated before I begin the chore of moving the box and running cables.

[N. Abstentia]

Yes, quit wasting time here and move that Dish into the theater room!


Just a side rant...have you considered changing to DirecTV? I recently moved from Dish to DirecTV because I found the Dish 522 just awful. DirecTV with Tivo is amazing, and DirecTV has much better picture quality. I do kinda miss the Sirius radio channels that Dish had, though. But I now have tons of more channels than Dish, plus TWO Tivo's, and it's $10 a month cheaper than Dish :)

[hershon]

I don't know if this is helpful as I'm on cable TV not dish. I get great TV sound through my receiver my simply using 2 cheap generic rca cables connected from my HD TV audio monitor left/right outputs to my TV audio inputs on my receiver. For some reason I get a better richer natural sound using these cheap RCA cables then using expensive cables including component stuff as well as Monster audio cables, why I don't know. I've never had problem with my TV sound.

[Smokey]

I have the television RCA audio outputs connected to my receiver so I'm able to listen to regular television stations thru my home theater.

There is your problem :)

Audio quality from TV's output is mediocre at best. I would suggest going directly from the satellite' audio output to receiver, or use the digital connection.

You also said that satellite is hooked up to TV thru coax cable. I would definitely bring it closer and hook up S-video to TV. You will get much better picture :)

[lakers05]

Thanks all for the replies, I guess moving the box seems inevitable. Dish is a huge step ahead of cable which I've had for the past 6 years and the bugs with the 522 are bearable, so far at least ;) Would I be able to use just the digital optical output from the box to receiver for audio or would the RCA plugs also need to be connected?

[N. Abstentia]

Just the digital is all you'll need.

[Geoffcin]

Just the digital is all you'll need.

From my digital cable box. The digital I feed into the receiver, and the analog outputs I send directly into my audio preamp. I was shocked at the high quality analog coming from this Scientific Atlanta HD box. On the music channels it's darn near CD quality, and I've got a pretty good CD player. The digital music channels blow away FM by a far margin, and there's no commercials to boot. We get like 40 music channels, and it's allowed me to listen to music that I wouldn't normally hear.

[hershon]

Hi, This might be a false alarm here but I watch my HD through Time Warner's HD DVR & HD Digital box (I have Sci Atlanta's Box on one HD TV & HD DVR on other HD TV) & according to the Time Warner Cable Technicians if you run your sound through either of their audio out's into your receiver's TV audio ins, you will get mono sound, I repeat mono sound, not stereo surround sound. If this isn't true in your case great but I'd double check this if I were you. I asked them this yesterday when I had an HD box installed for my second HD TV. Specifically I remarked to the cable guy, how come after trial and error, the TV sound, sounds better coming from my TV monitior outputs than my cable box outputs and he said because the box's outputs will only give you a mono signal.





From my digital cable box. The digital I feed into the receiver, and the analog outputs I send directly into my audio preamp. I was shocked at the high quality analog coming from this Scientific Atlanta HD box. On the music channels it's darn near CD quality, and I've got a pretty good CD player. The digital music channels blow away FM by a far margin, and there's no commercials to boot. We get like 40 music channels, and it's allowed me to listen to music that I wouldn't normally hear.

[Geoffcin]

Hi, This might be a false alarm here but I watch my HD through Time Warner's HD DVR & HD Digital box (I have Sci Atlanta's Box on one HD TV & HD DVR on other HD TV) & according to the Time Warner Cable Technicians if you run your sound through either of their audio out's into your receiver's TV audio ins, you will get mono sound, I repeat mono sound, not stereo surround sound. If this isn't true in your case great but I'd double check this if I were you. I asked them this yesterday when I had an HD box installed for my second HD TV. Specifically I remarked to the cable guy, how come after trial and error, the TV sound, sounds better coming from my TV monitior outputs than my cable box outputs and he said because the box's outputs will only give you a mono signal.

I have the 4200HD, not the one with the DVR. The sound quality is top rate, and stereo imaging too. With the Gallo Reference 3's it's nothing short of holographic. The unit obviously has quality Dacs as the quality easily matches most CD's that I have. I'm listening to the Smooth Jazz on Music Choice, and it's so good I'm worried that a good part of my CD collection is going to be covered in dust!

I run the analog outputs from the HD box to my passive preamp, so it's the shortest and purest signal channel. In passive mode my preamp is basically just an attenuator.

It doesn't sound nearly as good through the receiver, even if I put it on Direct mode.

Thanks for the heads up!

[JeffKnob]

Hi, This might be a false alarm here but I watch my HD through Time Warner's HD DVR & HD Digital box (I have Sci Atlanta's Box on one HD TV & HD DVR on other HD TV) & according to the Time Warner Cable Technicians if you run your sound through either of their audio out's into your receiver's TV audio ins, you will get mono sound, I repeat mono sound, not stereo surround sound. If this isn't true in your case great but I'd double check this if I were you. I asked them this yesterday when I had an HD box installed for my second HD TV. Specifically I remarked to the cable guy, how come after trial and error, the TV sound, sounds better coming from my TV monitior outputs than my cable box outputs and he said because the box's outputs will only give you a mono signal.

Hershon...you were told wrong. I have my Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR box connected to my receiver with component video cables for video. I use a coax digital audio cable and a standard RCA cable for sound. I then only output the picture from my receiver via component cables to my TV (no sound goes to my tv). That is the only plug to or from my TV (except for of course the power). I let my receiver run the show. The reason there is both the digital and analog audio cable from the cable box is that not all cable channels are digital even if you have "digital cable". When watching a digital channel my receiver will recognize the digital audio connection and when on an analog channel it will recognize the analog connection. When watching the HD channels or any of the other digital channels the sound is MUCH better than any of the channels using the RCA connectors. Most of my HBO content comes through in Dolby Digital which is impossible with the RCA connectors. When I watch a channel that is analog, and therefore uses the analog RCA cables, the sound is definitely in stereo as long as the show was recorded in stereo.

[hershon]

I'll try what you say out on my HD DVR which is Scientific Atlanta 8000. My other TV has a HD digital box & according to the cable guy the output via RCA jacks to my receiver will produce a mono sound. I do know that when I had a regular non HD digital box the audio was flat & not natural if I connected to my receiver but the sound coming out of my audio monitor outputs on my TV to the receiver was rich and natural with my cheap RCA cables. I thought I am hearing 5.1 on HBO but I'll check out what you said, appreciate the advice.

On your Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR, can you make external DVD's and vhs tapes from your DVR's out puts. I currently can't as Time warner in LA said it'll be another few months till they program that in.

Personally I think this DVR is great but couldn't believe the amount of complaints I've read on other forums about it. I've had no problems whatsoever & its easy to use.



Hershon...you were told wrong. I have my Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR box connected to my receiver with component video cables for video. I use a coax digital audio cable and a standard RCA cable for sound. I then only output the picture from my receiver via component cables to my TV (no sound goes to my tv). That is the only plug to or from my TV (except for of course the power). I let my receiver run the show. The reason there is both the digital and analog audio cable from the cable box is that not all cable channels are digital even if you have "digital cable". When watching a digital channel my receiver will recognize the digital audio connection and when on an analog channel it will recognize the analog connection. When watching the HD channels or any of the other digital channels the sound is MUCH better than any of the channels using the RCA connectors. Most of my HBO content comes through in Dolby Digital which is impossible with the RCA connectors. When I watch a channel that is analog, and therefore uses the analog RCA cables, the sound is definitely in stereo as long as the show was recorded in stereo.

[JeffKnob]

I'll try what you say out on my HD DVR which is Scientific Atlanta 8000. My other TV has a HD digital box & according to the cable guy the output via RCA jacks to my receiver will produce a mono sound. I do know that when I had a regular non HD digital box the audio was flat & not natural if I connected to my receiver but the sound coming out of my audio monitor outputs on my TV to the receiver was rich and natural with my cheap RCA cables. I thought I am hearing 5.1 on HBO but I'll check out what you said, appreciate the advice.

On your Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR, can you make external DVD's and vhs tapes from your DVR's out puts. I currently can't as Time warner in LA said it'll be another few months till they program that in.

Personally I think this DVR is great but couldn't believe the amount of complaints I've read on other forums about it. I've had no problems whatsoever & its easy to use.

I have never tried to output anything to a DVD recorder or a VHS.