I'm having problems adding the Xbox video game console to my Home Entertainment center. I was advised to purchase the Monster video component cable with five wires to connect. I want to plug into my HKA320 receiver, which already supports a HDTV, DVD, VCR and five speakers including a sub. There are two dvd slots one for connecting to the tv via optical or coaxial cable. I'm using the optical plus left/right video cable. The second DVD slot is the video component ports but there is no pos/neg sound ports. I can use the analog auxillary slot in front of the Receiver, but I want the digital DTS. I tried connecting directly to the tv (sony 32 hd ready) using the converter receiver ports but I could not get the tv to recognize the xbox. Was it a mistake to by the monster cable instead of the xbox av kit? I would prefer to connect to the HKA32. Recommendations?

1st things first...in my honest opinion Monster Cable for this application is a waste of money. You wouldn't notice any difference than if you used a nice quality cable that costs 1/2 as much. But the problem is you are making the wrong connection. If you are using the digital audio (optical connection), you do not connect the left/right composite jacks (since those are analog audio)...So here's what you do.

#1) Connect the Yellow composite video jack from your X-Box to your yellow DVD input on your A/V Reciever

#2) Connect your optical cable from your X-Box to your DVD optical input on your A/V reciever

That's all you need to do. I'm not familliar with that reciever but you may need to set it up to recognize the digital. Probably not though.

Put the reciever into auto format decode (auto) mode.
Also in my opinion Monster cable is right up there with Blows I mean (bose) , They are the second best markiting company in the U.S.
Go with a good quality Tosh cable and a desent comp cable your done.

From Microsoft's website:
"The Xbox passes through DTS sound for both DVD Video and Xbox games. Because of the tremendous advantages of the real-time Dolby Digital encoding capabilities of the Xbox it’s unlikely that a game studio would choose to use DTS. Dolby Digital is the audio format of choice for Xbox."

That's so troubling to me; I truly need DTS to convey the proper aural cues so I can be prepared to react when a Vermicious Knid is about to pounce on me right in the middle of an intense game.

lol

McNasty, Thanks for the good feed back.
I'm beginning to have the same thoughts about the Monster Cable...waste of money. Also I erred in insuating the optical cable is for the xbox. Let me try to clarify. I meant the optical cable is being used already from the NAD dvd player to the Receiver. I thought the Monster cable will all the digital audio, which the standard three prong cable provided by MS does not.
These cables are the video component five prong Green, Blue, Yellow, Red and White. There is a second DVD input for video which is the R,B,G, video compnent as well as a Video 3 input for the same cable. My concern there is no Left/Right input to plug the last to plugs of the monster cable. Does it matter if I plug these in to a L/R slot labelled for another audio/video source?

It doesn't matter, as long as you can select that input .You can use tape monitor. Also you can get an optical splitter from radio shack and split the input to the nad , as long as you only have one on at a time you can use 2 optical (tosh) cables.(one to each source)That way you get the best sound. And lose the analog cables.


This message was edited by kabster on 06/09/02 20:06.01.

Exactly...
If you already have sound hooked up through an optical input then you don't need to hook up the left and right audio plugs. And if you have no optical ports open, then either hook up your left and right audio plugs or try an optical splitter, I haven't had a need to try the optical splitters yet, but from what I've read and heard they work great.