S-Video/Digital Audio Out from Digital Cable Box to Reciever...

VTHokie01 · January 2003

Has anyone tried this setup and is it worth it? I had digital cable installed this week and noticed that the cable box has S-Video/Digital Audio out capabilities. Do you really notice a difference in picture and sound quality? Thanks!

phuz · January 2003

Not sure about the picture quality, but one big reason to use the digital audio out is so that your receiver can do 5.1 (DD/DTS) decoding when it's broadcast.

As far as the s-video, if it were me... I'd ask myself "why not?"

Ron-P · January 2003

You will generally see an improvement with S-vid.

Peace Out~:D

elsid88 · January 2003

Ron-P,

What happened to the Green Room. When I first started looking into building my own HT in the basement, the Green Room was one of the first that I came across on the internet.

My HT(The MexPlex) is in its first full season. My wife doesn't understand why I keep talking about the next HT that I want to build. Good luck with your second.

As soon as a digital camera is purchased I will have the MexPlex up in the System Showcase section.

VT...
If you have a decent display unit, you should always try to improve upon your pq. S-Video IS much better than composite. And if you can go component then even the better. Same with the Digital audio. If a movie is broadcast in DD 5.1 then you will gain that benefit, or if you have music channels, you will here a difference there as well.

Good luck.

Tom...

MexPlex:
Denon AVR4800, POA5200; Toshiba 57HX81 ISF Calibrated (Eliab)
Panasonic CP72K, Monster HTS3500, HTS2500
Polk Audio RT1000i's (L/R), CS400i (C), f/x500i's (SL/SR), RT35i's (SBL/SBR), PSW650 (Sub) - Cables (Monster/IXOS/AR)

goingganzo · February 2003

is your cabble box from wow? if it is you need both digital and analog outs. the digital olny works in the digital channels and you need the analog for anything below channel 80

pjdami · February 2003

I recently did both. Upgraged from coaxial cable to S video and also upgraded to digital coaxial plus RCA for sound. Much better video and sound (especially on the digital channels). You will need a regular RCA plug plus the digital coaxial plug for the sound to hear the non-digital channels. Its like a 5 - 10 db volume gain (not to mention clarity) when you switch through the channels and go from an analog cable channel to a digital cable channel. Get good wires though that are shielded. I use Acoustic Research that you can get at Best Buy. Monster are good too but about 30% more expensive.

Ron-P · February 2003

Ron-P,

What happened to the Green Room. When I first started looking into building my own HT in the basement, the Green Room was one of the first that I came across on the internet.

The Green Room had to go. We needed the space in the house and I was after a bigger room, thus The Driftwood. There were a lot of bennie's building the theater in the garage and getting it out of the house, (cooling, sound control, light control, seating...to name a few).

Peace Out~:D

VTHokie01 · March 2003

Originally posted by pjdami
Upgraged from coaxial cable to S video and also upgraded to digital coaxial plus RCA for sound. Much better video and sound (especially on the digital channels). You will need a regular RCA plug plus the digital coaxial plug for the sound to hear the non-digital channels.

Have you incorporated you VCR into the setup? I'm looking to enable the ability to record the standard cable channels with the S-Video/Digital Audio/RCA Audio setup and I just can't seem to match everything up. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

pjdami · March 2003

The way I have my VCR set up is as follows:

cable outlet from the wall to my surge protecter.
surge protector to input on digital cable box.
digital cable box to vcr with cable.
digital cable box to tv with s video cable (seperate output on box).

This setup allows one to tape movies on the premium channels where the box is needed to descramble the subscribed service.

Disadvantage of this setup is that the box has to be powered on to the channel that you wish to tape with the vcr.

There are a couple of other possibilities though. Depending on what type of digital cable box you have, you can set-up a bypass loop which can allow taping to the vcr with the box turned off; or you can split the signal from the wall and send a cable to the box and the other one to the VCR. I believe the bypass on the box is the better option though (less signal loss).

You can find most box manufacturers setup instructions online. I have a Motorola box and the following link may be helpful to you.

Hope this helps!

goingganzo · March 2003

here goes mine it is prety complimated. i go from wall to the surge then to the tv out if the tv to the digital cabbleand out of the digital cabble to the vcrand vcr to tv . o go out of the cabble to recever then to tv. i run audio out if the tv to the recever vid 3 and run aud and vid to recever vid 2 from cabble box. and from x box to composit2 and vid 4. i have 2 many cabbles and i have a 2 in pvc run from my audio rack to the back of the tv and it is allmost full. but no power in the pvc pipe has a plug in behind tv that runs to surge protector.

wolves10 · March 2003

no digital audio signal on analog channels!
i've got both hooked into my receiver, but im always listening to analog becasue im either to lazy or forget to press the digital button

S-Video/Digital Audio Out from Digital Cable Box to Reciever...

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