How do I hook up my computer to my surround sound system?

Is it possible to hook both a computer and a TV into the same surround sound system?

• If it IS possible, how can I know that a system I'm looking at online is capable of this? Thanks

• Answer:

  It depends on what AV reciever you use. This will have inputs for different types of cables (depends on the reciever) and an amplifier with outputs for your speakers. Have you decided on a system yet? If not, what is your budget, and what sound sources are you planning on outputting (dvd player, xbox, computer etc)? To get true surround sound you're going to have to use optical cables or HDMI cables. With the computer, you're probably going to just have to use a headphone connection, or if you have a sound card put in, you might be able to use an optical or HDMI cable and get surround sound. It depends on the system as to whether it will come with it, you can get packages that come with a reciever. If you want a good system though I would buy it seperate. You'll probably want to use the analoug outputs for the sound card, so you need a reciever that has surround analoug inputs. It'd probably be one for the centre/sub, one for the stereo speakers, and one for the back ones. You could also just use an optical cable. This is a good reciever- http://www.ultimateavmag.com/avreceivers/406jvc/ It would be more than capable of handling what you're after. It has analoug surround inputs as well as optical inputs. The only way you'll get true surround sound is with an analoug input that has seperate cables for the different speakers (like i mentioned before with the sound card), or through optical and hdmi cables. If you just want to listen to music with the computer and don't have optical or hdmi outputs for the stuff you want to watch on the tv, I would just get a good stereo system