Connecting new Smarty TV to my Cable system

[mystang52]

I'm ready to take a hammer to this new f%&*$ng TV, or just hang myself. I just replaced my perfectly fine 55 inch TV with a 65 Smart TV. Both are Samsung.
I have a surround sound system. The old TV had 2 connections: a power plug, and HDMI plug, which in turn was connected to the cable box. Same 2 connections for the new TV. I can watch TV with the smart channel connections (currently watching Man Who Shot Liberty Valance) but can't figure out how to get the TV to respond to the cable connections, and the surround sound.
I'm currently on hold with ky Cable provider, and it's only been a 45 minute wait so far. Before I commit hari kari, can anyone guide me through this?

 

[Car-Guy]

Do you only have one HDMI connector? My TV's have multiple HDMI connectors (up to 4) and I can switch between them with the remote. And of course smart TV's typically have both wired and wireless connections for Internet/streaming access... No HDMI needed for those.

 

[pb4uski]

It sounds like what you call the "smart channels connection" is streaming content via wi-fi but you need to switch inputs to the applicable HDMI port to get the cable box content.

 

[njhowie]

On your remote is there a button for "Input" or "Source"? If you press that it should let you toggle between the HDMI and the smart source. Or you may need to go to the Menu function and choose the input source from there.

Sometimes, if you just use the remote for what's connected to the HDMI, it will automatically switch to it. Our Roku does that on our old non-smart TV...probably how your cable box was previously working on your old TV.

This may help you:
https://www.samsung.com/au/support/tv-audio-video/samsung-tv-setting-my-tv-source/

2016 TVs and newer:
1 Press the Home button on the remote control to bring up the Smart Hub.

2 Toggle through the menu to select Source

 

[bloom2708]

For surround sound, you would either need to use an optical cable from TV to sound system.

Newer systems may have HDMI switching. All HDMI cables go into the receiver and one cable goes out to the TV HDMI.

A number of things happening here, so it depends on your devices.

 

[foxfirev5]

Don't feel bad. It took the Comcast guy a couple hours and several boxes to get our "smart tv" hooked up at our lakehouse. Although we've always DYI the covid store shutdown required personal delivery in May. No way DW and I could have done it. Gave him a nice tip and found out he lives right down the street.

 

[Freedom56]

What I did was connect the digital audio out from my Samsung TV (fibre-optic) to my surround sound system. So the signal path is the HDMI interface from the external device (in my case a Roku Premiere box) to the Samsung carrying the surround sound audio. Then the TV's audio out relays the digital signal to the surround sound system.

 

[mystang52]

OP here with update. A lot of swearing, frustration, but as you can see I didn't commit seppuku. As is usually the case, the fix was frighteningly simple, and perhaps due to my stupidity. In very brief: we replaced the HDMI cable, and simultaneously noticed a wrong setting on my surround sound. Or should I say, my smart daughter noticed. Anyway, all is good and I can now watch Thursday Night Football on a bigger screen!