How to Hook up a Phillips Home Theater System

by DoItYourself Staff

If you've recently bought a Phillips home theater system, you are undoubtedly anxious to set it up so you can enjoy your first movie. But setting up a home theater system is far more complicated than setting up a TV or stereo. The following tips will guide you through the setup, for optimal performance.

Step 1: Check Hardware

Examine the cable outlets at the back of your new Phillips home theatre system as well as those at the back of your HDTV. You will find many that look similar. Just match identical cable jacks and connect them with the correct cables.

Step 2: Optimising Clarity

Look for a HDMI (high definition multimedia interface) hook on the HDTV as well as on the Phillips home theatre. On a Phillips home theatre system, this would usually be labelled as either “HDMI” or “HDMI Output”. This provides the best picture clarity and is by far the best cable to use.

Step 3: Video Hook-Ups

If the HDMI hook is not available, then look for an S-video or a component video hook up. These video hook ups will give you quite nice picture quality. You can identify the S-video jack as the large, round one. In the Phillips home theatre, it would normally be labelled as “S-Video” and will be located under a “Video Out” title. Component jacks will also be located under the “Video Out” label. These come in clusters of three and are coded red, blue and green.

Step 4: Jacks

Located at the back of the home theatre as well as the back of the HDTV, should be a yellow RCA jack. This would be similar in size to the component video jacks. You might find that this RCA jack will be grouped with a white as well as a red jack on your television. In the Phillips home theatre, this will, in all probability, be under the label “Video Out.” It would be along with an S-Video connection. This option should be the last choice when connecting up your television. While the picture would be clear, the sharpness is not as good as with some other video options.

Step 5: HDTV

You can also hook up the HDTV and your Phillips home theatre system by means of the best cable option available. What you would need to do is, you would need to plug the cable into the “Out” jacks on your Phillips home theatre system. On your television, plug the cable into the “In From Antenna” or the “In” jack.