Welcome to the crew, agorena. Let me take a stab at this.

First, you might want to read through here for some information on cabling for your setup (the receiver and sample wiring diagram sections may help a little, too).

Now, for your specific questions:

S-Video would be your preferred method of hooking up the DVD and satellite video (better image quality), but unless your VCR is S-VHS and your TV has an S-Video input you won't be able to get full use of the 1050's video switching (it can't convert between composite and S-video). We'll assume for simplicity's sake for the moment that your TV lacks an S-Video input. In that case, you should connect the DVD, satellite, and VCR video to the 1050 with composite video cables and then connect the TV's video input to the "Monitor Out" composite video connection on the 1050.

What about audio? You'll want to use the R/L analog audio connections from the satellite and VCR. I'm guessing that the CD player does not have a digital output (optical or coax), in which case you'll use the R/L analog audio outputs from it, too. Lastly, the DVD should be hooked up with a digital cable (planning for the future here, and making use of the 1050's audio DACs which are probably better than the DVD player's onboard DAC). You can use the optical (toslink) or coax digital audio output for this -- some people feel that coax is the "superior" connection, but I've had a very hard time proving that to myself. If you use the optical output from the DVD player, you will have the freedom to add a CD player or satellite receiver with digital output later and still have both a coax and an optical digital input still open on the 1050.

As for the maggies, I think there are some others around here using them in a 5.1 speaker setup -- you may get some ideas from the Speaker forum for companions for them.

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gonk -- Saloon Links | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart