Quote:
Originally posted by TheDeep:
As for the connections, I have a cable box with audio-video-out connectors, and I have a few questions about this:

1. What's the VCR got to do with connecting the Cable TV feed into the TV? Why do we plug the coax from the cable box to the VCR, and then from the VCR to the TV?
Right now, I've connected the coax coming into the house, into the CATV box, and then from the CATV box to the TV. I tried connecting the cable box's audio-out into the 1050 but the sound is somehow better when I connect the TV's audio-out into the 1050.


Some cable boxes do not have A/V outputs (they only have RF coax in and out), making it impossible to directly connect them to a receiver. By connecting them to the VCR before going to the TV, you can use the VCR's audio outputs to connect to the 1050. If you have A/V outputs on the cable box (as is true in your case), it's just as easy to go directly from the cable box to the 1050.

Quote:
2. Is there any advantage at all to feeding the VIDEO feeds into the 1050? I wouldn't think so. Right now, all my audio inputs are coming into the 1050 and all video is going directly to the TV. For example, I have the DVD player's S-video cable connected directly from the DVD player to the TV, but I have the DVD player's audio wires connected to the 1050.


There's one advantage: automatic video switching. If you route the cable box video, VCR video, and DVD video signals through the 1050, then when you select the respective inputs the 1050 will also select the correct video source and pass it to the "monitor out" video on the 1050 (which can then go to the TV). Pure convenience, and it can be very handy. Be aware, though, that the 1050 will not convert between S-Video and composite video -- if you are using the S-Video for the DVD player and composite for cable and VCR, you'll still have to switch between the composite and S-Video inputs on the TV some.

Quote:
3. I have the VCR's audio also going into the 1050 but the audio is very weak. I tried calling Outlaw folks and they told me to look into fixed-versus-variable audio signals. My VCR has only ONE audio-out connection and there's no fixed-variable setting in the Options Menu. What else should I be looking into? Perhaps the audio cable is bad....

Thanks a ton!


Strange... Are any other analog inputs similarly weak? Is it a stereo (Hi-Fi) VCR -- left and right audio outputs -- or a mono VCR with a single "audio" output? If it is not stereo, you may have a bad splitter or something else causing some problems. It wouldn't hurt to check the connections and maybe swap out your audio cable with one that you have used successfully with some other source.

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