Chapter 1

88 Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About DVD
interference, but it’s more fragile and can’t curve tightly. Suffice it to
say that because the signal is digital, a quality cable of either type will
provide similar results. Hook a 75-ohm coax cable or a fiber-optic
cable between the player and the receiver. You might need a converter;
refer to “What Are the Outputs of a DVD Player?”
Some players provide separate connectors for Dolby Digital/
DTS/MPEG and for PCM. On others, you may need to select the
desired output format using the player setup menu or a switch on the
back of the player. If you try to feed Dolby Digital or DTS to a digital
receiver that doesn’t recognize it, you’ll get no audio.
NOTE: Make sure you use a quality cable; a cheap RCA patch
cable may cause the audio to sound poor or not work at all. Also,
connecting to the AC-3/RF (laserdisc) input of a receiver will not
work unless your receiver can autoswitch, because DVD digital
audio is not in RF format (see the end of this list for info).
• Component analog audio (excellent quality) Some players provide
six-channel analog output from the internal Dolby Digital or DTS
decoder. A few provide seven-channel output from 6.1 tracks. The digital-to-analog
conversion quality in the player may be better or worse
than in an external decoder. A receiver/amplifier with six or seven
inputs (or more than one amplifier) is required; this type of unit is often
called Dolby Digital-ready or AC-3-ready. Unfortunately, in many cases
you won’t be able to adjust the volume of individual channels or perform
bass management. Hook six (or seven) audio cables to the RCA
connectors on the player and to the matching connectors on the
receiver/amplifier. Some receivers require an adapter cable with a DB-
25 connector on one end and RCA connectors on the other.
NOTE: Until a digital connection standard is created, the only way
to get multichannel PCM output from DVD-Audio players will be
with analog connections or proprietary connections. If you plan to
get a DVD-Audio player, you’ll need a receiver with analog multichannel
inputs.
• RF digital audio (laserdisc only) Combination laserdisc/DVD players
include AC-3 RF output for digital audio from laserdiscs. Hook a
coax cable to the AC-3 RF input of the receiver/processor. Note that
digital audio from DVDs does not come out of the RF output; it comes
out of the optical/coax outputs. Analog audio from LDs will come out