What's the best way to connect a tv, dvd player and video to my surround speakers?

I'm assuming that you have a surround receiver that will allow you to do 5.1 (6.1 or 7.1) sound processing. Also, without knowing what type of TV and receiver you have, it makes it a little difficult to answer the question, so I will speak in general terms.

The easiest way is to connect all of your components using a 3-wire cable. Usually they are red and white for audio (left/right channels) and yellow for video. This is the simplest way to connect but also it gives you the worst in terms of audio and video.

If you want surround sound from your components, then you will need to upgrade to (at a minimum) optical. This will give your cable box, dvd player etc the ability to send their 5.1 signal to your receiver (which is where the signal is processed and then sent to your speakers).

Some other upgrades you might want to consider would be component video cables, HDMI or DVI. If you have a HD tv or HD-ready tv then these probably sound familiar to you.

Other ideas/questions: Do you want to run your tv/dvd player through your TV or through your receiver? There are a couple of schools of thought here. One, running through your receiver means another connection which can diminish signal strength or two, do you want to connect directly to your TV. The downside to that is that you will have to switch your source at two places. In other words, you will have to change your video source on the TV and then your audio source on the receiver. I currently do all of my switching through my receiver which means that I have to only press one button. I haven't seen too much of a signal loss.

I hope this hellps. If you dont have an amplifier then play everything through your video player I have an Hitachi Home Cinema Amp that has TV, dvd, Sky, Subwoofer output and surround sound speaker outputs.

This is from my own experience.

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