Need help hooking up home theater, Please!

sbarbermisier

sbarbermisier

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Hi, just got a new home theater system (Panasonic SC BT230), and looking to hook it up this weekend. The only things that will be connected are my Sharp LCD (has many hdmi inputs), my Wii, and my HD cable box. Occasionally I may hook up my PS3 or 360 to it, but right now it's not important. Looking for anyone that can help make this easier for me. Thanks in advance!

Here are some specs on the system, if it helps:

http://www2.panasonic.com/consumer-...-BT230.S_11002_7000000000000005702#tabsection
 
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Well since it's not actually a receiver you have a couple options. What I would recommend would be to run all of you audio and video into your TV. Your TV should have a audio optical out which you can plug into your blu-ray player. I'm not 100% positive on how that will work but that should be your best option. Another choice would be to use your 1 HDMI slot on the Bluray player for your cable box and use component for your wii. Assuming those are your only inputs you can just run a single HDMI cord to your TV.

Good luck
 
I don't think that I can hook up HDMI from my Blu ray to the cable box. Both components only have HDMI outputs, no inputs. So if I were to hook up the Blu ray via HDMI to my tv, what would be my best option for hooking up the cable box so that it would play through my home theater? Sorry if I don't understand, but this is my first home theater system, and I am admittedly ignorant on how to make everything work.
 
Run an optical cable from your cable box to the receiver/player. Put hdmi from the player on one tv hdmi input and hdmi from the cable box on another tv hdmi input. Change between inputs on the tv for whichever system you're using. Change to the optical input on the receiver when you want to just watch tv.
 
[quote name='sbarbermisier']I don't think that I can hook up HDMI from my Blu ray to the cable box. Both components only have HDMI outputs, no inputs. So if I were to hook up the Blu ray via HDMI to my tv, what would be my best option for hooking up the cable box so that it would play through my home theater? Sorry if I don't understand, but this is my first home theater system, and I am admittedly ignorant on how to make everything work.[/QUOTE]

according to your specs your bluray has 1 hdmi in? If it doesn't then you can run optical audio from your cable box to your theater. Your TV should have an audio out on it too. Try it and let us know if anything goes wrong.

edit: so I did read it wrong, your theater doesn't have any HDMI inputs. Run your audio from your TV to your theater and all your problems should be solved. If you need to pick up some cables, I can't recommend monoprice (their site got hacked and my info got stolen) but look around the web for cheap cables.
 
Ok, thanks to you both! I'm leaving town soon, but I'm going to attempt to hook this up on sunday. Hopefully I'll be able to give you a thanks instead of another question!
 
OP, if your TV doesn't output 5.1 surround sound, you're only going to get stereo sound from the TV's output. Not that many TVs output 5.1 audio over their audio outputs.

Your HTiB has two optical inputs, which means you'll be hooking the HD cable box audio to the HTiB via an optical cable, and the right cable would depend on what the output of the cable box is. The other optical input would go from either the 360 or the PS3, and if you wanted to hook up both, you'd need an optical switcher to put more than one device to one input.

The Wii's audio would go on the AUX jack on the back of the HTiB, since there's only RCA connections coming off of the Wii.

Run all the video connections to the TV, HDMI from the HTiB to the TV, component from the Wii to the TV and HDMI or component from the HD cable box to the TV.

The PS3 or 360 would go via HDMI or component, depending on the number of inputs you have to work with.

Posting the model number of the TV would be helpful, so we know what to work with for inputs and outputs.

[quote name='DV8']according to your specs your bluray has 1 hdmi in? If it doesn't then you can run optical audio from your cable box to your theater. Your TV should have an audio out on it too. Try it and let us know if anything goes wrong.

edit: so I did read it wrong, your theater doesn't have any HDMI inputs. Run your audio from your TV to your theater and all your problems should be solved. If you need to pick up some cables, I can't recommend monoprice (their site got hacked and my info got stolen) but look around the web for cheap cables.[/QUOTE]Monoprice has long since fixed that issue and I've ordered from them since then without any issue. I also had the same issue and understand that issues happen with web vendors.

I'd continue to recommend them even with that issue that happened. Without question.
 
According to the CNET page, you have 2x component jacks and 3 x HDMI jacks.

You should connect the PS3 via HDMI to the TV for video and via TOSLink optical to the HTiB for audio. Same for the Xbox 360.

Wii would connect to one of the component ports on the TV for video and via RCA audio to the AUX jack on the HTiB for audio.

Cable box would connect to the TV via HDMI or component for video and via TOSLink / RCA optical to the HTiB. If the cable box only has a RCA optical port, then you'd need a cable (from Monoprice or other places) that is RCA optical on one end and TOSLink on the other end. If it's TOSLink on the cable box, then a normal TOSLink cable would work.

There's not enough optical inputs to take the optical cables from both the PS3 and the 360 at the same time to the HTiB unless you get an optical switcher or just connect one at a time.
 
You have two inputs according to that page

INPUT/OUTPUT:

HDMI Out 1 to TV
Video Out 1
Audio Input 1 (AUX [Stereo Mini Jack, 3.5mm])
Wireless Terminal 1
Ethernet Terminal 1
USB Slot (for Wi-Fi) 1
Digital Input 2 (optical) --- hook up your cable box and PS3 here
 
Sorry, but what do you mean by "TOSlink"? Checked the back of the cable box. I'll hook up HDMI from my cable box to my tv. On the back of the cable box, there is an Optical Audio Out and a Digital Audio Out. Which should I use, and with what kind of cable? I'm guessing this will also go to the tv?
 
TOSLink cables (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOSLINK):
http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10229

RCA Digital Audio Cables (also known as SPID/F cables):
http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10236

TOSLink cables are optical cable with a squarish-end to them. RCA digital audio cables have RCA-type connectors, like the ones you see on a standard RCA red/white/yellow composite cable set or a red/green/blue component cable set.

The two digital audio ports on the back of your HTiB are TOSLink ports, so you can see one if your cable box doesn't have one.

The optical cable would go to the HTiB, as you'd use that for audio rather than the TV speakers. Your cable box should be smart enough not to route audio over the HDMI cable if there's an optical cable connected to the back of it. It may need a setting to change that, as it might not be automatic.
 
Thank you, you've been more than helpful. I'm going to dig into this sunday afternoon, hopefully without any more questions!:D
 
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After disconnecting my cable box, I was able to confirm it that it does have an input for a TOSlink cable. Ordered one, should be here wednesday! Thanks, again.
 
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