How to Hook up a Home Theatre and DVD Player to a TV
Many modern speakers come with a built-in receiver system that you can plug into any electrical outlet. This allows you to plug-in home theater speakers to your DVD player without hooking them up through the television unit. This produces the best sound quality. Many new flat screen televisions and DVD players hook up together via an HDMI cable. This one cable connects the sound and video.
Items Needed:
- Speaker system
- Receiver
- DVD player
- TV
- Mini jack to RCA splitter
- HDMI cable (optional)
- Determine the type of speaker system that you are going to connect. If it is not prewired then you will need to connect the speakers to a receiver individually. In this case, you need to run TV output red and white RCA wires to the RCA line-in jacks on the receiver.
- Connect a prewired speaker system by plugging in the 3.5mm mini jack from the speaker set to the mini jack to RCA splitter. This converts the mini jack speaker main connection wire into an RCA capable connection. This is necessary because most televisions do not come standard with a mini line-in jack.
- Position the speakers around the room based on the standard home theater sound guide. Elevate the two surround speakers off the floor by mounting them from a ceiling hook, or a wall mount behind the seating area.
- Turn the front two speakers towards the center of the room, about 30 degrees towards the center. Place the center speaker in the front and above or directly below the television. If you have a subwoofer, place it towards the center of the room up on a piece of marble or hard surface for the best bass resonance.
- Plug the red jack from the speakers into the red audio input jack on the back of the DVD player. Repeat for the white jack. You may need a splitter to split the one jack into the standard red and white RCA jacks of the DVD player.
- Consider plugging the HDMI capable DVD player and TV together using an HDMI cable. Then simply plug the sound output from the television directly into the audio receiver to hear the audio through the receiver while playing a DVD.
- Test the speakers by playing a DVD.