Trouble with home theater setup
 

Hey all, I thought I'd never see the day when I have to ask how to setup my home theater but with the new teachnologies out there these days...

Anyhoo, I have the following:
4 speakers and a sub
Yamaha 5.1 Channel Receiver (RX-V459)
Samsung Blu-ray BDP1000
Samsung HDTV

I can get the video from the blu-ray to the reciever and then to the TV, but the problem is, there's no sound at all.

Here's some of the things I've tried:

1. Using old set of speakers (assumption is that the new ones are defective)
2. Hooked the blu-ray to the tv directly, no sound either (assumption is that the receiver is the problem)
3. Hooked another dvd player to the receiver and then to the tv, no sound either (assumption is that the blu-ray is the problem)
4. Tried various audio settings on both the blu-ray and reciever, no dice

Any idea?

Personally I'd skip the through-receiver video and hook up hdmi from blu-ray right to the tv and optical from blu-ray to receiver or from tv to receiver (if tv has optical audio out)

how are you connecting the blu'ray? are you using hdmi or component? remember that hdmi does carry sound as well as video.

Bingo.

I finally figured it out. I'm not sure what it means but the receiver had output setting of 8 ohm while the speaker was designed for 6 ohm. So, I set the receiver to 6 ohm and it fixed the problem. I don't know what that means but I guess I'm getting old.

I am hooking the blu-ray through the component cable, and I'll take up catback's suggestion.

Ok, my tv is HDTV but it doesn't have HDMI port (how odd...) so, I have looked into getting a HDMI->DVI cable and was wondering if it's any better or should I just stick to the good old component cable?

Also, which would be better, digital cable or coaxial cable for sound? Alot of review/opinion are split on that one.

While this is true, some receivers DO NOT process the HDMI audio feed, they simply pass the video on to the display you have to use a seperate (coax/optical) audio to make your audio connections.

The thing to look at, is will your TV do 1080p and do you HAVE to view your video sources in 1080p if the answer to either one of those is NO then component cables will be just fine as they can output at 720p or 1080i both of which will look just fine. As for the audio cable to use, either of those will work just fine for a 5.1 system but neither has the bandwidth to do a 7.1 signal from an HD audio source (someone please step in on this one if I am wrong)

HDMI is basically a DVI cable with digital audio added in. It is better than component but nothing signifigant in my opinion.

Might as well as what is the one true religion. The general rule of thumb is to base it off distance and equipment quality. Fiber hass less degradation but requires more expensive equipment to overcome the translation lag. So if you've got a short distance between equipemnt or lower end equipment, stick with coax.

Optical and digital coax are both digital so assuming a short span its 6 of one, half-dozen of another.