TV hookup

I just got my 970 and I want to hook up the video feed from my Dish through the 970 and then into tv via the monitor out s-video. Will the dish feed passively go through the 970 with out it having to be turned on. I hooked it up without having turned the power on the 970 for the first time and i did not get a picture on the tv. I figured if it was a passive output it would work. Do I have to do the setup on the 970 first and will I always have to have the 970 on for the video from the dish to appear on the tv.
This is my first venture into the higher end of a/v home theater. So, I am probably missing some basic common sense knowledge here.

No, the video will not pass through the 970 when it is turned off. The 970 must be on to get any video switching.

It's often counter-intuitive to home theater newcomers, but it's actually much more difficult to set up a system that will allow you to still watch TV when the receiver or processor is turned off. Many people take the approach of wanting to be able to "just turn on the TV" and watch TV without firing up the entire system, but the cabling necessary to do this and the control involved is really a huge headache compared to just turning the receiver or processor on.