Best way to connect Lcd, HDD, sky and receiver

Forums › Home Theatre (incl HTPC) › Best way to connect Lcd, HDD, sky and receiver

mrgts4

16 posts

Geek

Topic # 55665 7-Jan-2010 19:06

Hi,

I have just purchased the onkyo hts 5205. I have a pioneer DVR 640 dvd recorder with no HDMI, a sky decoder and a samsung la40a450lcd tv. What is the best way to connect all these together so I can listen to sky through the reciever, record sky on the HDD and listen to the hdd throught he receiver.
At the moment to watch sky we hve the tv on ch6, if we want to watch the hdd or a dvd we have the tv on AV1, we also have a normal aerial which we can watch standard tv through.
We have the scart to 3 rca going from sky to HDD, then 3rca to 3rca going from HDD to LCD, and a coax from sky to tv.

What extra cables will I need to get this running through the receiver?

Hope that makes sence

Cheers

Glenn

CYaBro

2958 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 286

Reply # 288118 8-Jan-2010 13:26

I would start by taking your scart-3 RCA cable to your local Sky office and swapping it for a scart-svideo cable.
This will get you a better picture to the HDD recorder for when you record something off Sky.
While you are there get a 2nd scart-svideo cable to go from the 2nd scart output on the Sky box to the TV.
This will give you a much better picture than watching Sky on a tuned in channel (Ch6 in your case.)
This will put Sky on AV2 probably.
You will need to get into the Advanced Setup on the Sky box and change the scart settings from composite to svideo. Your Sky box may even support scart-component which would be even better again so might pay to check the advanced setup first and see.
You should also get an optical audio/toslink cable to go from the HDD recorder to the receiver for the best sound and swap the 3rca-3rca, from the HDD recorder to the TV, with a component video cable to give you the best picture.
Your sky box should also have 3rca outputs on the back of which you can use the red & white for audio to the receiver - Just use the 3rca-3rca cable you removed above.

Edit: That's one way of doing it.
The other way to do it, if your onkyo supports video conversion, would be to connect everything to the onkyo and then just have one HDMI cable from the receiver to the TV and do all the switching on the receiver.

Computer Repairs Whangarei
Apple Authorised Reseller
Apple Authorised Service Provider

mrgts4

16 posts

Geek

Reply # 288691 10-Jan-2010 15:49

Thanks for the advice, is the optical/toslink cable the square ended one that transmits light? The receiver is 1080p capable HDMI pass through so dont think it supports video conversion although I could be wrong s I dont know alot about home theatre.

What is this sky shop you speak off? I have only delt with them over the phone.

Cheers

Glenn

mrgts4

16 posts

Geek

Reply # 289391 12-Jan-2010 19:41

Well this is turning into a nightmare. The HDD doesn't have an optical output but has 2 s-videos, the tv only has 1 svideo input and the decoder doesn't do component. I have got the 2 scart- svideo cables connected to the tv and HDD but when we wtch sky through the HDD it is black and white, probably caused by the 3 rca's to the tv from the HDD, will the component cble from the HDD fix this or will it still be strange because it is s-video in and component out?

CYaBro

2958 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 286

Reply # 289401 12-Jan-2010 20:07

mrgts4: Well this is turning into a nightmare. The HDD doesn't have an optical output but has 2 s-videos, the tv only has 1 svideo input and the decoder doesn't do component. I have got the 2 scart- svideo cables connected to the tv and HDD but when we wtch sky through the HDD it is black and white, probably caused by the 3 rca's to the tv from the HDD, will the component cble from the HDD fix this or will it still be strange because it is s-video in and component out?

You need to get into the Advanced Setup on the Sky decoder and make sure the SCART settings are on S-video otherwise you will get a b&w pciture.

If the HDD doesn't have optical it will have coax digital output (Usually an orange RCA type socket) which your receiver also has as an input so you could use that instead of optical.

Computer Repairs Whangarei
Apple Authorised Reseller
Apple Authorised Service Provider

mrgts4

16 posts

Geek

Reply # 289403 12-Jan-2010 20:14

Yep, changed to s-video. It shows fine when watching sky stright from sky decoder but when we watch it through the HDD it is black and white, but I only have 3 rca to 3 rca going from the HDD to TV. Waighting for my new cabls to arrive so that is probably the problem, my question is, when I hook the HDD to the tv with the component cable will it fix it even though the video signal into the HDD is s-video?

Thanks for the help I'm much more use to fixing things with a hammer and nails.