Post 11 made on Thursday January 25, 2001 at 12:29
Scott L.
Historic Forum Post
Hi Mason,
Part II: How To Hook This Mess Up.
Use coax cable as little as possible, just enough to get a signal to your components. All other video connections should use the best available video connection. For example, here's a simplified version of what my setup looks like. I use my preamp as a switcher/selector for both video and audio.
I have the AT&T Digital Cable service, but this will be similar for satelite. The coax comes out of the wall, is split, and goes to the digiital cable box and to the VCR, using the requisite F connectors.
An s-video cable (and R/L audio cables) runs from the cable box to the preamp.
An s-video cable (and R/L audio cables) runs from the vcr to the preamp.
An s-video cable (and R/L audio cables) runs from the DVD to the preamp.
An s-video cable runs from the preamp to the TV video input number one.
With everything using the same type of video connection, things are simple, and the preamp can easily input/output and switch signals.
To take advantage of the component output from the DVD, you would run component video cables (and audit cables) from the DVD to the receiver/preamp. You would also then need component cables running from the receiver to the TV. You may run into issues when switching between different sources using different types of video inputs, but this is receiver/preamp independent. This topic has been covered many times before on RemoteCentral, so I won't do it again here.
Other folks instead run the component cables directly from the DVD to the component-in on the TV. (The DVD audio cables still go to the receiver.) This will in theory give you better video signal quality due to having less connections (by not going to the receiver first), but the difference is usually negligible.
If you do this, you now have a switching issue: Your VCR and cable box are fed through the receiver to the TV on video one, and your DVD goes straight to the TV on video two. You'll need to switch the receiver to the DVD input to get the sound through your speakers, and switch the TV input to video two to get the video from the DVD. It's little nuances like this that keep people coming back to RemoteCentral looking for the "perfect" universal remote control.
