Audio Systems: TV - no audio outputs fors surround sound, antenna cable, screen menus

Question
I have a Sharp 32" Television.  It is a basic TV, not HD, LCD or anything like that.  My television only has 2 video inputs.

I have a surround sound system but, of course, cannot hook it up to the TV because there are NO audio outputs on the Television.  

Is there any device I can purchase to get the surround sound to play from the television?

Thanks,
JEFF WHITEIS

Answer
Dear Jeff,

You're probably better off without audio outputs from the TV. They're notoriously low powered, and IMHO worthless.

The solution to your problem involves purchasing two pieces of equipment: an audio/visual receiver and a DVD player. You connect your TV's incoming signal, which will be coaxial cable feed from an antenna, cable or satellite, to the ANTENNA IN connection on the rear panel of the DVD player. You connect the ANTENNA OUT of the DVD player to the ANTENNA IN on the TV. You simply direct the audio and video throughput of the DVD player to a discreet source (VIDEO 1, VIDEO 2) on your receiver (the user's manual will walk you through the set-up and designation process, generally through on-screen menus), and every time you have the receiver on and the correct source selected, you'll hear the TV's output over the receiver's speakers.

Now, very few TV broadcasts are in surround sound, and you generally need a cable or satellite connection to receive them. Check with your cable or satellite provider to find out if you need anything special to accept broadcast surround sound. I would think not, but it's worth a phone call.

However, any DVD will play in surround sound, and every A/V receiver made these days has at least 5.1 capability (two front channels, a center channel, two surround channels and a subwoofer) and can handle virtually all the standard surround decoding algorithms (DTS, Dolby, and their variants).

Good luck. And thanks for choosing allexperts.com!

Kindest regards,

Kevin