Setting up a Home cinema System, idiots guide needed

[Spence29]

Hey folks.

Anybody know the best place to get advice or a PDF on how one can set up correctly a home cinema system which includes the following....

Sky+ Box
DVD/AV player
Video recorder
Plasma

I'm getting in a bit of a mess with so many scart leads and where they go etc.

Cheers

[dobbin]

It depends a lot on the connections into your plasma and the outputs on your other devices.

What is the make/model of your plasma and what input connections does it have?
Same for the other devices.

WIth the equipment you have described (Sky+, DVD, VCR) I would at first glance think that they will all be connected directly to the Plasma if there are enough suitable connections.

There doesn't appear to be anything complicated (famous last words!).

[Spence29]

Hi dobbin and thanks for replying to my thread

The plasma is an LG 50PC1DA and the DVD is the LG LHT550TB Hi-Fi Surround Sound system.

The LG 50PC1DA Plasma has two AV1-AV2 Scart leads at the back and a 3rd (name escapes me). 3 SCARTS(1 full)?

The DVD LHT550TB has one scart lead from what I can see

[inzaman]

Hi and welcome to the forums, the DIY sention is really for self build projects and help with those. This is more of a general AV question so i have moved it to the relevant section as you should get a quicker response

[Spence29]

B U M P

I guess I'm really trying to ascertain here whether the Sky+ scart should go straight to the DVD Player (Amp) for the 5.1 surround sound? Or...the plasma??

Anyone??

[RichardBoult]

I may be wrong as I don't know exactly how the DVD player based HC equipments work, but I don't think you'll get DD5.1 over Scart! I reckon you're gonna need an optical or coaxial lead.

I would assume that the DVD player will connect to your TV via Scart, as will your Sky+ box. After all there is no need to connect these two directly as there is no recording function. To then get DD5.1 can you connect the optical out socket on the Sky+ to your DVD player (if indeed that also acts as an external amplifier for DD5.1)??????????

I think we might still need more info!

EDIT:

You have component out from the DVD so use this to connect the DVD player to the TV's component in's. You then either listen to your DVD's in stereo through the TV (by using a red and white audio cable between DVD and TV) or in DD5.1 via your Home Cinema kit.

It would appear from your diagrams that optical output from the Sky plus to the DVD/Home Cinema is not possible which means that this should be connected via RGB Scart to AV1 and the sound will be Stereo through the TV set only.

With regard to the VCR, this should be connected directly to AV2 via scart and if you want to archive Sky+ to video the VCR Scart on the Sky box should connect to whatever Scart In is on the VCR...actually .........anybody else care to comment........I'm confusing myself now!!

[Spence29]

Hi Richard, thanks for your reply.

I think I am going to leave the video out of the equation for the time and concentrate on where the Sky+ Scart needs to go for me to utilise their Dolby Dig Surround Sound. i.e. the DVD/amp or the Plasma.

I've updated my diagram lol for any advice pointers or help.

Cheers

[RichardBoult]

Spence

your DVD's will play in DD5.1 via your satellite speakers etc. that are connected to your DVD player which also acts as the surround sound amplifier. The best picture quality will be acheived using component leads from DVD to the component inputs on the plasma. Obviously you will have then to manually switch to whichever video input the components are on on the plasma.

Unnfortunately the only way to get DD5.1 out of Sky (on movies for example) is by using the optical out on the Sky+ box, this is no good to you however as the DVD player doesn't have an optical in and therefore can't distribute the DD5.1 to your speakers. Therefore I am afraid with that kit you can only watch Sky+ in Stereo.

The good new is though that you can rely on a single scart lead (fully wired) connected from the TV Scart on the Sky Box to your AV1 input on the back of the plasma to pass video AND audio to the plasma with the added advantage that switching on the Sky box will automatically switch the plasma to the AV1 input that it is plugged into. When you do this make sure that the sky box is set to output RGB and not PAL. This option can be found in the services menu in the sky on screen menu.

[Spence29]

Originally Posted by RichardBoult

Spence

your DVD's will play in DD5.1 via your satellite speakers etc. that are connected to your DVD player which also acts as the surround sound amplifier. The best picture quality will be acheived using component leads from DVD to the component inputs on the plasma. Obviously you will have then to manually switch to whichever video input the components are on on the plasma.

Unnfortunately the only way to get DD5.1 out of Sky (on movies for example) is by using the optical out on the Sky+ box, this is no good to you however as the DVD player doesn't have an optical in and therefore can't distribute the DD5.1 to your speakers. Therefore I am afraid with that kit you can only watch Sky+ in Stereo.

The good new is though that you can rely on a single scart lead (fully wired) connected from the TV Scart on the Sky Box to your AV1 input on the back of the plasma to pass video AND audio to the plasma with the added advantage that switching on the Sky box will automatically switch the plasma to the AV1 input that it is plugged into. When you do this make sure that the sky box is set to output RGB and not PAL. This option can be found in the services menu in the sky on screen menu.

Thanks Richard.

What does the above (in bold) actually do then? Improve picture quality?