Moderators Youthman Posted February 18, 2008 Moderators Share Posted February 18, 2008 My dad called to tell me that they bought a Toshiba HD DVD player today and a new TV for their bedroom. He moved his current DVD player to the bedroom and has that connected fine. He wants to connect his HD-A2KU to his Sony Wega KDFE42A10 HDTV. His receiver is an older Onkyo TX-DS656 that does not have HDMI. I'm thinking of hooking the audio up via Toslink (fiber optic) and the video up via HDMI. I'm new to HD and HDMI but am learning so I have a few questions regarding the hookup. 1. Since his receiver is only Dolby Digital, if he has a HD movie, will it play as DD or will he have to select some pro-logic or stereo sound in order to get sound? 2. Will this cable from Monoprice.com work with this setup? Too bad he cannot take advantage of the 1.3 to send the uncompressed audio to his receiver. 3. Is it correct that since the Onkyo does not have a DTS decoder and the Toshiba does not have Multi-Channel Outputs, the Receiver will not be able to process DTS? Any other recommended options for hooking this up to acheive the best possible sound and video with their current equipment? Below shows the rear of the Toshiba. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wuzzzer Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 1) Within each movie's menu there are different surround formats to choose. I don't remember exactly (mainly because I have a two channel setup) but I don't remember many discs in HD-DVD being in DTS format. Its usually Dolby Digital Plus which I would imagine that receivers would decode as regular Dolby Digital. 2) Yes, monoprice is a great place for HDMI and other cables and it will work fine. 3) Correct. And like I said before, I don't recall seeing many or any HD-DVD discs in DTS. Not that there aren't, but in his case he couldn't use DTS anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Youthman Posted February 18, 2008 Author Moderators Share Posted February 18, 2008 Thanks. That makes sense. I just wanted to make sure that I have everything hooked up properly and the best method for their setup. I just remembered that I will need to hook up the analog RCA for them to hear CD's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest srobak Posted February 19, 2008 Share Posted February 19, 2008 Actually, you shouldn't need to. Just set the receiver for the optical input - it should fall back to 2 channel mode when the optical stream sends it. That's how mine works anyhow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EM3 Posted February 19, 2008 Share Posted February 19, 2008 He may want to rethink the whole HD-DVD thing since Toshiba isn't going to manufacture any more players. It's all Blu-ray now. Unless he is using that player to upconvert standard DVD's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Youthman Posted February 19, 2008 Author Moderators Share Posted February 19, 2008 Yeah when Dad called and told me he bought an HD I asked him if he got it cheap. He said, "not too cheap, it was around $160.00". I then explained in comparison to Blu's $400 price tag, the Toshiba was "cheap". I was concerned too but after I explained everything to him, he said he was fine with the limited selection. I told him the plus side is that he has a really nice DVD player and will be able to get movies really cheap until they are all gone. He has a lot of DVD's so it will make them look nicer as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest srobak Posted February 19, 2008 Share Posted February 19, 2008 Or he might be like me and be happy with the up-converting, as well as the fact that in a few short months he will be able to pick up current/near current releases for pennies on the dollar, and overall have spent very little money between the deck and media on something which will be useful for quite some time until the BR field comes to a more sane price on both decks and media Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Youthman Posted February 19, 2008 Author Moderators Share Posted February 19, 2008 My dad will be happy with just about anything. He knows very little about technology but enjoys watching TV and movies. The upscaling should be a treat for him. HDMI cable will come in a few days. Still can't believe I paid less than $10 (including shipping) from www.monoprice.com and at Radio Shack and Walmart, they wanted $50 for the same length HDMI cable. What a huge markup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest srobak Posted February 20, 2008 Share Posted February 20, 2008 It's just copper wire moving digital signalling. It doesn't have to be braided, noise cancelling, gold connectors, blah blah... it is 1's and 0's... it either works, or it doesn't. You could essentially get the same results out of using paperclips between the devices. Absolutely no reason for it to be expensive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Youthman Posted February 20, 2008 Author Moderators Share Posted February 20, 2008 Yeah, there is a lot of marketing hype that has people thinking they have to buy "Monster Cable" in order to get a quality sound. A long time ago, when I worked at Circuit City, we had one small isle display setup with a/b using regular RCA and Monster Cable. Guess what? Most people either could not tell a difference AND many of them chose the regular RCA over the Monster Cable. Long live MonoPrice! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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