Josh,
Bare wire is perfectly fine for connecting speaker wire to your speakers and receiver. You can use any termination (spades or bananas) if you wish. It won't make any difference. It is all personal preference regardless of what anyone may tell you otherwise. The odd time a receiver may not fit a particular termination though but bare wire is universal.
As for the DVD player, you will need interconnect cables to hook up to your receiver. You can choose usually from 3 methods, via RCA (red and yellow or sometimes red and white) connectors which is an analog connection, or 2 digital connection options.
If you use the RCA connection, your DVD player will do the audio processing for the sound. If you wish to use the DVD-A feature in 5.1 sound then this is the only route at this time that makes this possible. You literally have to buy RCA cables for each channel which goes out from your player and into a section on the back of your receiver. This means buying 5 or so RCA cables. Take a look on the back of your new DVD player and you will see what i mean. The instruction manual should also make this point more clear.
If however you do not wish to use that 5.1 feature at this time or you wish to view a DVD in Dolby or DTS surround sound, you can/must connect the player to your receiver via one of two digitial methods. These are coaxial cable and optical cable. There is no difference between the two. They only carry zereos and ones to your receiver which then processes that information into the analog signal sent to your speakers. Most dvd players do not decode Dolby or DTS information from movie dvds so this information must be passed to the receiver's processors via a digital connection to use these features.
Some people have a preference as to which unit, your DVD player or the receiver, processes the sound signal for music, but most well built units today will sound identical. Any minute differences in specifications or measurements are often beyond the realm of human hearing. Chances are you won't be able to tell between the two except if there is a difference in signal sensitivity creating a difference in actual volume.
You will also most likely need a subwoofer cable (single RCA plug) to go from your receiver to the sub. Lengths are variable but choose a length appropriate to where you want to place your subwoofer in the room. They are not expensive and i picked up one from eBay for about $20 for 30 feet.
There have been many inexpensive options reported in these forums for places to find interconnects.
