Surround sound Hi I have an Insignia flat screen hooked up RCA surround sound, it is also connected to Directv dvr, when we watch dvds we have surround sound, and when we watch directv...the sound is just coming from the tv.

Easy solution; this is a very common problem. Connect Cable or satellite box / DVR directly to one of the TV HDMI inputs. Connect an optical audio cable from that box to receiver so sound is surround through your speakers. You cannot connect DVR directly to receiver because the anti pirating chip will shut off the picture and produce a green or no screen at all.
You can, however, connect a BD (Blu-Ray) player via HDMI cable directly to your receiver without that problem. Connect HDMI output from receiver to a second HDMI input on the LG.
Contact me if you need more help! All the best, John

This reson you are not hearing any "TV AUDIO" through your RCA surround system would be due to your tv sound output not being connected to an audio input into your surround system. You can hear DVDs,CDs and radio possibly mp3 if connected, as these are built in to the amplifier which the speakers connect to.
If the tv has a Line out (via phono plugs) and NOT via headphone out, connect it to an audio input on the RCA surround system. If the RCA has no other available inputs, well....there ain't a lot you can do but watch CSI with the sound from the TV and then Star Wars (for example) through the TV and Surround system.
Best Of Luck

you need a logitech sound adapter or game adapter that costs 4-10$ on ebay.

Connect LR channels using an RCA cable and hook up the speakers on the other end of the game adapter

If you have the audio cables hook up correctly to where the video cable from DVD is connected to, it should be RED and WHITE wires for audio. Then go to on screen audio setup menu to see if the speakers is turn off in the menu. Also try hooking up the powered PC speakers to the AUDIO LINE out RCA jacks to see if you get the sound OK there.

Do you have a cable box or satellite box? If you do, try hooking up your TV sound through the box. Look for audio out in the back of box (white/red RCA Jacks). Hook RCA cable from cable box to surround amp. Even if the audio out jacks are being used already, you can use Y connectors to hook up the surround amp to the box.
Hope this works for you!

if your trying to use the dvr still your probably not connecting it all properly. make sure that. having a sony trinitron you have alot of connections on the back. if you connect all of the accessories that you have on your tv directly into each input and use the tvs main output connection to connect straight to your surround sound. this should fix your problem. plus you wont have a bunch of stuff hooked up to your surround sound receiver

It looks like all you'll need to do is hook up audio out from DirecTV to audio in on the surround sound system. Sony has an interesting hookup recommendation guide on the product support site:

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/model-home.pl?mdl=DAVC700&LOC=3

That should give you the connection options. The short answer, though, is to connect the best audio out from DirecTV to an audio in on the surround sound and then choose that option in the surround sound system when you want to watch TV.

can you tell me why i can watch my dvds with surround sound but i cant watch ordinary tv with surround sound, very frustrating. asked at the store and they sold me an rca audio cable, this has made no difference, perhaps i have not wired something in correctly, please help ?????

Does your rca cables go to a surrond sound amplifier or directly to the tv. The tv only has two speakers.If the signal is sent to a seperate receiver it must have a lisyen mode then set to 5.1 surround. The digital optic cable should go to receiver first.

Good Luck
big red

hdmi can only pass pcm 2.0 digital for the separate cables you may try to switch them to another output from the monitor to the receiver or if you can get your hands on a spd-if cable (one single fiberoptic cable that will go as high as 5.1 dolby surround)