I just got my 990 yesterday after waiting for several months to get things together (money) and setting it up now looks very daunting to me. I am working alot so this whole process may take 2 or 3 weeks since I'm limited on how much time I can spend doing this. My first decision seems to be whether I should run everything through the 990 or not, are the majority of owners doing this?

The way I have things hooked up now to different inputs is (1) Direct Tivo, (2) VCR, (3) Front input don't use, (4) Dvd, (5) Zenith HDTV OTA tuner, (6) Ant.2 ,OTA antenna (the signal being split to go to both HDTV tuner and Ant.2). I can't figure out if I can still do this if I ran everything through the 990 or not but what I like to do is to be recording on both Tivo tuners (besides watching one of them) and use the previous channel button on my remote to jump back and forth between one of the Tivo tuners and either my HDTV tuner or Ant 2 to check on ballgames. Could you still do this? I use a MX-500 with macros to jump from one input to another also. I just can't envision how this will work with everything going through the 990 after years of simply switching inputs. Is what I doing now actually easier and more functional plus the advantage of running the satellite directly into the tv.

After someone answers my first question, where do I start in trying to setup the 990 even though it may sound dumb to ask this?

I am running all of my video through the 990, and with an MX-500 you should be able to set it up so that things run pretty smoothly. Does your HDTV have a DVI or HDMI source, and if so do any of your sources include a DVI or HDMI output? If either of the answers is "no" then you can make things very simple: just run all of the video cables to the 990 and run a component video cable from the 990's monitor output to the HDTV. The Tivo would have either component or s-video output (preferably component if it's available) and a digital audio cable (optical or coaxial) to the 990, the VCR would have composite video and analog audio, the DVD would have component video and digital audio, the Zenith's OTA tuner would have a digital audio cable (since the video signal is produced in the TV, there's no video cable to worry about), and you might need to run analog audio from the Zenith for the other over-the-air (I'm assuming that antenna 2 is analog TV broadcasts) since it may not output the audio from the analog tuner to the digital audio output.

Yes the answer is no as my tv only has component and I guess my new Oppo 970 does have HDMI. Okay I'm now looking at the back of the 990 so:

My DTivo has only S-Video so I should run it into Video 1 In (S-Video) and the optical output into Optical 1 In.

My Zenith HDV-420 OTA tuner has component outs so they should run into Component 2 In and the optical to Optical 2 In. Currently I have a couple of different outputs I'm running out of the Zenith but I can't remember why. I'm running analog R/L for audio since I never had any digital cables but I'm also running another R/L analog audio and composite video out from 480i output although I don't know why. Maybe I ran more cables than I needed to.

My Dvd should run Component out to Dvd Component In.Then run optical out into optical in. Do I just pick any optical input not in use since there is not a designated one for Dvd?

I understand about hooking up the vcr. Can you verify that I'm understanding so far what I'm doing? I have 3 optical cables on order from Outlaw, one for the Oppo, one for the Tivo and one for the Zenith so I guess I need them before I can do much.

I think you're on track! Yes, the OTA tuner and Oppo 970 DVD player should have component video cables connected to the 990, the Tivo should have s-video to the 990, and the VCR should have composite to the 990. Lastly, a component video cable from the 990 to the TV will get you set up.

The digital inputs are completely assignable (as are the component inputs, for that matter) - you can connect the Tivo to optical1, the OTA tuner to optical2, and the DVD to optical3 and then just assign optical1 to Video1, optical2 to Video2, and optical3 to DVD. Then you can also run analog audio from the VCR to the same input that you ran the VCR's video cable to. If you ever use the TV's internal tuner, you'll want to run analog audio from it to an input on the 990 (and this can be either a video input or an audio input like AUX or TAPE since you don't have to do any video switching).

You probably used the OTA tuner's analog audio and composite video to go to the VCR for recording, if I had to guess. You can still do some of that if you want/need to, and we can help figure out the easiest way to set it up if you do. If you're feeling overwhelmed, the delay while you wait for the optical cables can help to get all your ducks in a row (as my wife would say) - it's intimidating, but once you break it down to what you really need and ignore all the extra connections you won't need it actually gets manageable pretty quickly.

Thanks Gonk!

Gonk since I've hooked up the Dvd to Optical 3 can I still use Video 3's S-Video and Analog audio for my VCR?

Also you mentioned that if I wanted to use the tv's internal tuner I would need to run analog audio from it to a video input, but wouldn't I have to run video also?

Absolutely you can use Video3 for something else - remember the digital inputs are completely separate from any analog input. And to use the TV's tuner, you'll want to run audio from it to the 990, but since you're video is being produced by the TV there's no video to send. You could use any input on the 990 - you could even use the tape input if you wanted ti.

Okay gotcha! I also see in the manual that besides running component from the Monitor Out to the tv you should run another S-Video or composite cable output to the tv, what's the reason for this? Does it matter if it is the lower quality composite if I'm running out of S-Video outputs on the 990?

The s-video or composite cables really aren't required with the 990, in my opinion. Since the 990's component output gives you access to the setup menu as well as transcoding of composite and s-video sources, there's no particular need that I can see.

Good no need to do that then, maybe I will find some time to mess with setting it up tomorrow. Thanks!