I have a new Denon 2910 that will serve as both a DVD player and a CD player.

Video: It has HDMI, SVIDEO, component and composite. My TV only has SVIDEO and composite. Will running component video from the DVD player to the 990 improve my picture at all? It seems to me that if there is SVIDEO anywhere in the chain (like from the 990 to the TV) then it all might as well be SVIDEO. Any thruth to this?


Audio: The 2910 has 5 channel and 2 channel audio out. I only have FL and FR speakers at the moment so surround is out.

I would like to be able to hear dvd audio on the TV speakers when the 990 is not on. (so my 4 year old can still spin up a movie without touching the 990)

Obviously I would also like to hear DVDs and CDs through the 990 when it is on. Is this at all possible? I am unsure if the 5 channel out from the 2910 requires a 5.1 speaker configuration. Any help would be greatly appreciated (I need to go buy cables). TIA

You want to use the best video connection that your TV supports. In your case, that's going to be s-video. The 990 (and other processors and receivers) will not transcode video down from component to s-video.

You can run the analog left/right audio outputs from the DVD player to your TV if you want to listen to the player through the TV, but you'll also want to run the composite video output from the DVD player to the TV (when the 990's off, the video switching isn't active). You'll want to run a digital audio cable (coax or optical, doesn't matter which) to the 990. The six-channel analog output is for DVD-Audio and SACD discs (which aren't allowed to be output digitally, for reasons that are too silly to go into for now). For DVD's, you'll be best off with the digital audio connection.

Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you.