Home theatre help

[Lumps of cheese]

Hey,
After some advice on what cables to use on my home theatre set up.
Basically this is what i have:

Samsung 46" 6 series 1080p lcd tv
Samsung Blu ray dvd player
Sony dolby/dts amplifier
Canton speakers and sub woofer

I've been told that the monster cables are pretty good but i don't want to spend huge dollars on cables without any feedback from people who have them.
Also my amplifier doesn't have an hdmi imput so would optical fibre be the go?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[br14nh]

Optical connection to amp is recommended, as for monster cables, you are paying a lot for performance you're probably not going to notice. When it comes to speaker cables, get the thickest cable you can afford that has the most conductors - for the same gauge of wire, lots of thin wires are better than a few thick ones, as the current travels mostly on the surface - more surface area, better conduction.

Having said that, that sort of cable is usually used for high-end audiophile setups with top-notch speakers, unless you have spent a LOT on your speakers you are not going to notice much difference - You don't need to go overboard as even normal 240V twinflex is quite adequate for most home theatre set-ups. Try with what you have available first, you can always replace these later without much drama (unless you are running through walls or something!).

As for audio & video connections between units, get a reasonably mid-range cable - Jaycar have a good assortment, depending on what connections you need. Cheap audio/video cables are more susceptible to noise and will cause more problems down the track. If your screen & DVD accepts SCART, get those - otherwise, go for a medium - good quality Component connection cable (YUV or YPbPr). S-Video is the next most acceptable and composite (plain yellow RCA type connector) will only give an ordinary picture.

Don't forget for digital reception to make sure your TV antenna and cabling is of good quality and uses F connectors where possible; otherwise you will definitely get glitches & interference, even when switching lights & other electrical appliances in your own home.

Cheers,
Brian

[Lumps of cheese]

Cheers for the reply.
So you don't think the hdmi cables are the go for connection between the player and tv?
Also, what's scart?

[arrow224]

OK, optical cables don't provide enough bandwidth to support DTS HD and DTS MA, which is an optional part of the BD specification. Toslink bandwidth is up to 125Megabits/s, while HDMI is up to 10.2Gigabits/s.

Hence, you should use a HDMI cable between the BD player and amplifier, and another HDMI between the amplifier and your TV. However, seeing as how your amp doesn't have HDMI, you are going to have to use optical (also called Toslink). On the visual side, use either component (red, green, blue) or D-SUB (also called VGA).
Edit: if your amp has HDMI out, then use that between the amp and the TV.

You can go for any branded cable, they are all pretty much the same. The only reason you would want to go with Monster is either a) you believe all the salesperson sales crap, or b) you are an AV purist that can notice at best a 1% improvement in signal quality.

[Lumps of cheese]

Okaaaay, very technical!
Definately no HDMI on the amp, i know that much so optical will be the go there.
Yeah, salesman crap had me going so do you think the HDMI cable that came with the blu ray will be ok?
Also, why would the surround sound be better viewing hd tv over my dvd?
Have i got something hooked up wrong?

[arrow224]

Yeah, salesman crap had me going so do you think the HDMI cable that came with the blu ray will be ok?

Yep. One could even go for the MSY 5m HDMI cable for $15 and it would be the same.

Also, why would the surround sound be better viewing hd tv over my dvd?

Not necessarily. Very few TV programs are broadcast in 5.1, almost all (~98%) are in 2.0. So the benefits of hooking up your TV audio through your amp is negated by the fact that you will only every be using 2 channels, which your TV already provides.

[TVR-190]

dealextreme offer some cheap hdmi cables, i bought one. works fine for 10 bucks

DealExtreme: $10.22 HDMI M-M Connection Cable 1.8M

same as a 100 buck one in terms of quality

[bezz]

i use Hosa branded cables for all my hifi/home cinema stuff. If you're fine with ordering online, I very much recommend ordering from http://www.bhphotovideo.com
I've ordered off of here several times, with the current strength of the dollar you can't beat their prices.

[br14nh]

Yeh, sorry... I was stuck on the connection to the amp.... HDMI is the go between the DVD & the TV. Optical is for the audio to the amp. Scart won't be there if it has HDMI so don't worry about it, it is generally only found on older TV sets and some DVD's /set top boxes now.

The one that came with the Blu-Ray should be fine, I would only look around if you need a longer one.

As arrow224 says The sound will also vary depending on what the TV station transmits... mostly they only transmit 2 channel audio, even on the HD channels so you won't get surround unless your amp artificially "creates" it - most have programs that do this.

You'll only get proper 5.1 surround if it is being transmitted. Using Optical into your amp, it will tell you how many channels it is decoding out of the "stream" whether it is from your DVD or from the tuner in the TV (assuming that there is an optical output from your TV which you can run to the amp, sometimes it's digital co-axial - also called S/PDIF - same result but uses wire instead of fibre optic).

[Lumps of cheese]

Cheers for the help guys, i would've spent $$$ on cables i don't need so thanks heaps.