If you can tell us what kind of video connectors each piece of equipment has (or just the model numbers
) that would help. Most AV equipment these days supports at least three or four different kinds of video connections, each requiring different cables but each giving different video quality as well.
The main kinds are, from lowest to highest quality :
- composite video (single RCA, typically yellow)
- S-Video (single funny looking round jack with 4 pins, I think)
- component video (3 RCA, typically different colours)
- digital, either labelled DVI or HDMI
You normally want to pick the highest quality connection which is supported by all the equipment. If the player and TV support a higher quality connection than the receiver, that is when you would normally want to connect the player directly to the TV and bypass the receiver. Otherwise it's much simpler to run everything through the receiver so it handles audio and video switching at the same time.
BTW, if you find all this baffling don't worry, we all felt the same way the first time we tried to hook up an HT system
