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There are 2 types of audio connections that use RCA cables.
One is the old stereo connection that uses 2 RCA cables usually colored red (right speaker) and white (left speaker / mono)
The other is for digital-coax. Functionally, this is identical to optical audio (SPDIF), but uses a single RCA cable (usually colored orange) instead of an optic fiber line. Like optical audio, digital coax carries a surround sound signal to a home theater receiver or AV receiver, and can support up to 5.1.
Most AV receivers should have at least 1 optical audio and 1 digital co-ax input.
You don't have to buy a special digital-coax cable. In many cases, just a regular RCA cable (any color) will work just fine. For instance, I have my DVD player connected to my surround sound system with a long Composite Video (yellow) RCA cable. It was much cheaper than buying a specially made Digital Coax cable which cost 5x as much.
Is it true that I don't have to buy a special digital-coax cable? I am unable to get my DVD-stereo to work. Do you think I have another problem?
Since HDMI, I've not used that port. However, back when my Home theater was connected with component cables, I have used regular RCA cables to connect to the digital coax. I did come across a monster cable later. But I never heard a difference. Just searching around, it seems that some have experienced signal drops, and using a digital coax made it better. I guess it really comes down to the quality of your RCA cable, equipment, etc.
Yes they usually are coded orange, sometimes in red. Not used much anymore. The optical is more common and now HDMI is the norm. The cable has to be 75 ohm. Regular RCA cables are meant for analog not digital. Using a typical RCA plug can reduce a cable's impedance from 75 to between 25 and 35 Ohms. You may be able to use a higher quality RCA and make it work. It all has to do with the diameter for the central conductor. A bit technical but that's it in a nutshell.
I found the setting that was wrong. It wasn't set to output PCM audio. It was at one point, but for some reason it changed. It had nothing to do with the cable.
I've used RCA(yellow, red, white) in place of component(green, red, blue, white, red) as temporary fix when I had an HDMI cable go bad. The component cables have better shielding and can carry a signal farther. I'd imagine your mileage is going to vary with something like this. In my case the only electronics were the TV and cable box, it was just a 3 foot cable.
Instead of setting the audio output of the source device to Dolby Digital® or DTS sound, try setting it to output PCM
My problem was that my setup worked for a while, and then it didn't work. Somehow my DVD player had the setting changed to something other than PCM (Pulse Code Modulation). I have no idea how it got changed, as it involved changing a setting deep inside a logic tree controlled with the remote.
As I didn't have a manual for the DVD player, it took me a while to figure out how to change it back.
After that the regular cable worked fine.
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