WOW, I just got bummed out today...I had an installer set up my home theater...Since I have just gotten a new 50" Samsung DLP HDTV, I wanted to make sure everything was right...Anyway...
After hooking up all my components....DVD, VCR, Satellite HD DVR, Monster Power, All thru my YAMAHA RX-V2400, I was THRILLED to hear the sound which was now sent thru using the Fiber optic cables (my previous setup with the same A/V receiver was not set up this way....
Pretty cool....BUT, to my dismay, I was UNABLE to get ANYTHING on my ZONE 2 Channel, which happens to be my outdoor speakers by the pool...
The tech explained to me that the Zone 2 cannot pick up digital signals, only analog signals...BUMMER
I cannot hear the XM satellite stations on my outdoor speakers..Nor can i listen to CD's MP3's thru my DVD player outside..
This was Useless to me, since I need the sound outside...That was a reason for the ZONE 2..

Any ideas as to what I can do?
There is NO WAY to utilize the fiber optic AND analog wires?
I am newbie at this stuff, hence the reason for the tech set up and nOT myself.....
I guess I am forced to listen using the component cabling, and NOT the optic cables?

Sigh.....Any thoughts?

Does your DVD player have analog outputs? If so, route those to an input on the back of your Yamaha and assign the zone 2 to use that as the source. I'm doing something similar with my Squeezebox. I run an optical cable from the Squeezebox to one input source on my receiver for main listening and use analog cables to a separate input for zone 2 listening. In my case, I use the CD inputs to route my Squeezebox analogs to since I don't have a CD player.

If your XM source is separate and has both digital and analog outputs, you could do something similar. It would depend on how many open inputs you have on the back of the Yamaha. I don't have XM, so I'm not sure how this integrates with your receiver.

Sorry, I should have been more specific..When i spoke of XM radio, I was referring to the music channels that come with DirecTv,,,,They are XM channels.
I like using them for commercial free music outside.

I like the zone 2 setup because it allows one person to watch/listen to something inside, and another to listen to either the same thing, or another source (DVD,CD, TV etc)

Am i making too much out of this optical cable thing?
Is the sound THAT much better....Is the surround sound better sounding using optical cables?

For surround sound you pretty much need a digital connection -- either digital over coax or digital over optical -- so running optical from player to receiver makes a lot of sense.

Zone 2, on the other hand, is stereo by definition, so whether you run digital or analog doesn't make so much difference. The suggestions to run two cables from your DirecTV box -- digital for zone one, and analog for zone 2 -- seems like the right answer.

Sound quality isn't so simple -- a digital connection lets you carry the information "unadulterated" over to the next component in line, which hopefully can do a better job of converting digital to analog. Given what we typically spend on receiver vs. DVD player, for example, having the receiver do the D/A conversion is usually a Good Thing, but for zone 2 you're not going to be missing much.

That's exactly what I do--I have stereo analog cables from my DVD/CD changer going to the CD input along with a digital connection. I don't remember exactly how I have it set up in the receiver, but it seems to function.

I had my old Pioneer 578 hooked up with analog (CD on the receiver), optical (DVD) and 5.1 analogs (SACD and DVD-A). I think I had the video output as both component and composite RCA as well for some reason, though the "why" escapes me at the moment......