Home audio & video forum: Tricky Home Theatre System Question.

by reciever, for the Z-5500's, you mean the decoder/control box they ship with? (unless you've actually re-wired the system to use an HT reciever, which is entirely possible)

The TV has RCA stereo output, so the only options for input to the decoder box with the Z-5500's is going to be a stereo input, you could try patching through your PC but that'll require the PC being on to watch TV (not really worth it imo, unless you use the PC for HTPC duties).

A few things to consider:
stereo signals won't become surround sound just because the speakers are surround sound
if you can get a digital/coaxial S/PDIF out that would help a lot more (do you have an STB that produces such an output?)

Generally what I'd suggest is connecting the Z-5500's to the computer as a 5.1 speaker setup, and connecting the TV to the computer as a secondary monitor, and watching DVD's/etc in that manner, which will give you 5.1 sound, and utilization of the size of your TV. The issue you'll run into here is that you can't do much else than DVD's.

The Philips DVP-642 would be another option, if your primary use is DVDs, its about $50 online, and provides a digital optical out.

I have those speakers and am very familiar with them, i just need a better idea on your setup. do you have a coax cable going to your tv and that is it, or do you have a dvd player or cable box. if you only have the tv, or any other equipment without a digital output then the easiest thing to do would be to run to radio shack and grab a rca to 3.5mm jack cable for 6.99. it has the red and white connectors on one end and a mini-phono jack on the other. just hook it up to any of the 3 inputs on the back and there you go. you can select prologic II movie and you can get a fake surrond sound, not real 5.1. hope that helps. let me know if you have any other questions. ps, get something with a digital out. i use these with my hd-dvr and and oppo970 for dvd-audio and sacd discs and they sound amazing

Just to let you know that is a huge waste of money. You are just making analog stereo sound into digital stereo sound NOT surround sound. One pair of red and white rca jacks just carry right and left channel sound not 5 seperate channels needed for surround sound. Just get the 6.99 cable from radio shack i told you about and you will get the EXACT same result as with the $60 conveter. I bet you could not tell the difference between the two. just trying to save you some money. take the $50 bucks you save and get a dvd player with a digital out.

it will work on any, i have my dvd player hooked up with optical and with three of those rca-phono jack cables and i have the z-5500 on direct instead of the three-channel, because dvd-audio and sacd discs need to go through hdmi or individual analog cables. anyway, you'll just want to have that little switch on the back on 3-ch and you pick which one you want to plug it into. then instead of the stereo setting just change it to prologic II movie and bingo, sound out of all 5 speakers.

i only need the tv in surround sound, i have the dvd player/xbox on optical, and mp3 player on direct, so that leaves me with coax and the 3 things on the back, so it seems like i should go with rca-to-3.5mm and plug to one of the three things on the back.

i got the rca-to-3.5 thing and i did what you said, but it is only going to either the right or the left 2 speakers and only getting a signal from the white connector. did i do anything wrong or is it just bad?

so, basically, there is no way i can watch my tv, not movies, in real surround sound with my sound system unless i either have: A. an expensive tv or B. an expensive dvd player that records tv

the inputs are an optical, coax, direct, and direct from a computer. i have heard that our apartment that we are moving in has supplied a comcast cable box, im crossing my fingers.