Okay, this isn't as hard as it seems if you break it up into digestable chunks. Let's start with speakers. Your Denon will accept bananas, bare wires or spade lugs, and of the three, I'd suggest spade lugs. Bananas are convenient, but unless you plan to change equipment alot, spades are your best bet for long-term use. So, we're done with speaker wires at the amp end--let's move to the speakers themselves. I'm not familiar with this brand, but I suspect that the binding posts will accept bananas, bare wire or spade lugs--same deal here; use spades. Now that we've got our speakers hooked up, let's test it by selecting the tuner and turning up the volume a bit. Even without an antenna, you should be getting some noise (static) to confirm you have the speakers hooked up.
You have a decision to make now--will you use the Denon as your video switcher or will you use your TV as the video switcher. Essentially, you can use either, but it will change how you select between sources (VCR, DVD, Cable, SAT, etc.). I personally like to hook all my sources directly to the TV, and use the TV source switcher. This selects both the appropriate video and audio feeds. Then, I have the TV feed the audio signal to the receiver. As such, the receiver is always on Video 1 for example, and I select the source using the TV remote. This also allows you to set the volume on the receiver and forget it, using the tv remote to control volume. Of course, this only works in a Dolby Prologic setup in which there are no digital audio streams to deal with. Since I haven't gone AC-3 or DTS yet, it works for me.
Where this doesn't work is when you get into AC-3 and DTS, because they require that the digital output from the source (DVD, LD and Satellite) go directly to the receiver, as most TVs can't pass a digital audio signal. In that case, you need to hook all your sources up to the appropriate inputs on the Receiver. You'll then use the receiver to select source for both audio and video, and the receiver will feed the video signal to the TV. This is done by running the Monitor 1 Output to your television. You'll then control source selection and volume using the receiver's remote.
Each source may have a choice of outputs. A DVD should have digital out (optical and/or coax). Given the choice, use the coax output instead of the optical. You should NOT use a regular interconnect (the cables with RCA plugs on either end), but a digital interconnect which has 75 ohm resistance (they are commonly available).
For your other non-digital audio stream sources, just use whatever choice you have, which is either S-video or composite video (again, looks like an RCA jack, but usually colored yellow). You'll want to use 75 ohm video transmission cables for these video connections as well.
I know it's a lot, but just hook up each component, and then test the connection before moving on. I'd start with the DVD, and I'd connect the S-video out from the DVD to the DVD S-video in on the receiver. Then, I'd connect the Digital Audio Output of the DVD (may be labeled PCM) to the Coaxial Digital In 1 on the receiver (below and just to the right of the fan). Page 28 of your manual will explain how to assign this digital input to the DVD Selection on your receiver. That way, when you select DVD on the receiver, it will know that the digital audio stream from the DVD is coming in on Coaxial Input 1! Next, you'll still want to hook up regular audio left and right from the DVD to the Receiver, but you MAY want to hook these up to the CD inputs! Why? Because, when you are using the player for CD, you can (a) select CD on the receiver and get sound, and (b) the Pioneer Elite may have a very good Digital to Analog converter section that you'd prefer to have converting the signal. You can do more research on this later.
You'll hook up each of your remaining sources in a pretty straight forward manner. Last is to hook up the TV, and this is easy.
Just run a S-video cable from the Monitor 1 output of the receiver (near the top, just left of the fan) to the S-video 1 input on the TV. You'll also need to run a composite video cable from the same Monitor 1 output of the receiver to the same composite video input on the TV. This is because the receiver will pass an S-video signal when one is present from the source (such as your DVD player), but won't create an S-video signal from a non-S-video source (like most VCRs). It should however, pass the composite signal from the same output (Monitor 1). You may have to dig into your manual a bit to clear this up.
Turn on the TV, select whatever video input you have connected from the receiver, and then use the receiver to select the various sources. I suggest you do this with each source before moving along to the next. Good luck, be patient and don't worry.
If this is the way you want to go, then you simply plug each of y
