Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Best Connections

I have a Hardon Karmon Receiver and a Sony 32" flat screen a DVD player and a VCR I would like to hook up. I have been told to use RCA conectors from DVD and VCR directly to the TV and then connect the TV to the Receiver. Is this the best way to get the best picture and sound. It seems to me I have a pretty good receiver and not really using it for anything other than hooking up my speakers and my TV.

Which model of H/K do you have? Also, does your TV have multiple video inputs (eg Video 1, Video 2, Video 3, etc.)?

Because my TV has only one input aside from coax(ie cable/antenna), I run everything through my H/K. I have the VCR and DVD video hooked up via s-video, then s-video to the TV. My H/K (a 525) requires that all video sources be of the same type in order to output them over one video connection.

In terms of audio, you should not be running any audio through the television. You should have audio out on the TV, which would be a pair of L/R RCA analog audio jacks. These would go to the receiver on one of the video inputs (probably video 2). Your VCR probably has the same; hook those up to video 1. I give you this order because that is how they are sub-labeled on the remote-easier to remember that way!

The DVD player is a different matter; that will have digital outputs for the audio manifesting in one of two (or both) ways: optical digital out, or coaxial digital out, which is yet another RCA jack. You can use a standard single RCA cable for that, which is what I do. If you prefer to use optical digital (aka Toslink), or if that's all your DVD player has, go ahead and use that--it doesn't really matter which you use. That should go into one of the digital inputs on the H/K. I believe the Digital Input 1 is automatically assigned to the DVD channel in the H/Ks, but you may have to enter the menu system to verify/assign this.

Hope this was somewhat helpful, feel free to post back if I'm completely unintelligible.

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

I didn't.

Show off.

Thank-you so much for your help. Completely understood.

i have a harmon kardon 135. My Sony VCR is capable of composite connectors only, my DVD has composite, Svideo and digital capabilities. My Sony TV has composite, S-Video and component capabilities. I have my DVD connected with a digital audio cable to my receiver and yellow composite to my TV. I have my VCR connected using cheap RCA connectors to my receiver, both video and audio. I am using my VCR as my tuner so I have the outside cable going into the vcr then from the VCR to the TV. Sound OK?

Sounds good. Can I check a couple of assumptions :

1. Your DVD player has digital AUDIO out, not digital VIDEO or component video, correct ?

2. You are running a composite video cable from the receiver to a different input on the TV (different from the one used for the DVD player) and switching the Sony TV from one input to another when watching VCR or TV ?

The easiest change would be to run the composite cable from the DVD player into the receiver, just like the VCR connection. That way you wouldn't have to play with the TV remote when switching from VCR to DVD.

A different approach would be to replace the composite cable running from DVD to TV with an S-Video cable. That would give you a noticeably sharper image quality.

If I remember correctly, the 135 still has the HK quirk that the on screen display (OSD) only comes out of the composite outputs, not S-Video or Component (at least that's how my 630 works). If that is not the case, ie if a 135 will output the OSD to an S-Video output, then the third and best approach would be :

- keep the composite from VCR to receiver
- replace the composite cable from DVD to TV with two SVideo cables -- one from DVD to receiver and another from receiver to TV

This approach (if the 135 OSD works on SVideo) gives you the best of both worlds -- sharper image when playing DVDs and eliminating the need to flip inputs on the TV when going between DVD and VCR/TV.

Hope this helps. Knowing if the 135 will output OSD to SVideo output is the main question before you choose an approach -- I'm downloading a 135 manual "just in case".

Of course there is always option 4 -- accept a slightly less sharp DVD picture than you could have, leave everything alone, and enjoy the system

I use a composite to S-video adapter so I can route all vid through my H/K (oh no, my signal! )

And my 525 certainly outputs the OSD on S-vid, just not composite.