Audio Systems: Connecting Surround Sound, hitachi projection tv, optical fiber cable

Question
My friend just bought a 51" Hitachi Projection TV -- I have been trying to hook a Kenwood Sound System to it but not having any luck - I can get the surround sound to work with the DVD player but nothing with the TV ---I tried RCA cables, Optical Fiber cable --- I used to be decent doing these kind of hookups but apparently don't know what I am doing here. What am I doing wrong?

Thank You very much for your time

Answer
It may not be any fault of your own.

That may be because none of the programming you're watching contains actual surround-sound information, so what you're decoding is only the stereo information.  This is especially true if you're simply using analog Cable TV directly from the wall straight into your TV.  There's just not enough bandwidth in there for anything more than NTSC stereo on most channels (some are even crunched down to mono).

I might also suggest poking through previous folk's questions on this or other sites - you're not alone!

By the way, in my experience your friend's 51" Projection TV should provide him or her with many more years of quality imaging compared to a Plasma.  Enjoy!