{"id":4542,"date":"2003-08-09T20:35:09","date_gmt":"2003-08-10T03:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=4542"},"modified":"2003-08-09T20:35:09","modified_gmt":"2003-08-10T03:35:09","slug":"home_entertainm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/08\/09\/home_entertainm.html","title":{"rendered":"Home “Entertainment”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rrg. And, also, argh.<\/p>\n

Spent about three hours this morning, working up schmatics of the new arrangement with the home entertainment system. Trying to match up the ports to the cables needed to the proper lines of communication, combined with some confusing and unclear and occaisionally seemingly contradictory documentation didn’t make this any easier.<\/p>\n

Also drilled and mounted the left\/right speakers on the entertainment center. Minor hilarity ensued as angled holes through angled sections of entertainment centers meant all sort of angled fun.<\/p>\n

Went out and ran errands. Part of running errands was picking up necessary cables.<\/p>\n

Errands ran for a number of hours (though not all of that was on cable quest). We also, in the process picked up a new VCR. The old VCR is mono, and would not properly pass on stereo signals from the Cable, if hooked up the way I wanted to hook it up.<\/p>\n

VCRs are, any more, pretty cheap. Though stereo ones less so. But I digress.<\/p>\n

Got home. Ran another errand to Radio Shack for one additional piece of wiring needed to hook up the receiver to the wireless (surround) speakers.<\/p>\n

Got home again (after going swimming with Margie and Katherine. All work and no play, after all …). Worked on hooking things up.<\/p>\n

Everything hooked up beatifully. <\/p>\n

Fired everything up.<\/p>\n

Everything works … kinda-sorta.<\/p>\n

Haven’t tested the wireless surround speakers. One thing at a time.<\/p>\n

CD deck to the Receiver works great. DVD out to the TV works great. FM and AM work as well as can be expected.<\/p>\n

However, VCR through the Receiver to the TV provides sound but no picture.<\/p>\n

And cable, through VCR through the Receiver to the TV provides … nothing.<\/p>\n

But we can watch all the DVDs we want. Heh.<\/p>\n

I had an idea to bypass the problem. But, of course, it requires a cable I don’t have.<\/p>\n

Of course.<\/p>\n

*Sigh*<\/p>\n

UPDATE (8:40p): Hmmm. If I shift to using a coax from the Cable box, in parallel with the video\/audioL\/audioR, to the VCR, I get cable sound. Progress, I guess.<\/p>\n

UPDATE (8:45p): Going to just the coax didn’t do anything. My guess is either the video\/audio ports on the Cable box are not used, or else there’s something funky in the VCR setup that I can resolve — once I can get picture.<\/p>\n

Hrm.<\/p>\n

UPDATE (8:50p): Okay, if I hook the VCR video out to the TV, rather than to the VCR video in on the Receiver, I get picture on the TV. Not what want to do, to be sure, because, dagnabbit, the video from the VCR should go out on the S-video from the receiver, too. But at least, now that I have picture, I (a) can keep Kitten entertained (in the morning), and (b) I can figure out the VCR programming, to see if that has some influence.<\/p>\n

UPDATE (9:20p): Aha. There is a button on the VCR remote for selecting the input: channel (coax), Line 1 (the audio\/video ins on the back of the VCR), Line 2 (the audio\/video ins on the front of the VCR). So I can resolve the coax problem by simply hooking the A\/V leads from the Cable box to the VCR and specify Line 1 on the VCR as the input.<\/p>\n

But I’ve discovered another annoyance. Unlike previous VCRs I’ve owned, it appears that this one does not act as a passthrough when turned off. I.e., it has to be on for (in the current configuration) the cable to be visible.<\/p>\n

That sucks.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I think I found an (odd) clue in the Receiver instructions. It says that “when connecting S-video cable, a Composite video cable (yellow RCA connector must also be used.” Which is kind of odd.<\/p>\n

Okay, how about this?<\/p>\n