There are a few ways to connect up your gear. Try this one.

1.Connect the Dish Receiver to the HDTV via a/v cables, NOT coax cable.

2.Connect the Cable TV cable to the HDTV's coax input.

3.Connect the AUDIO outputs of the TV to the AUX or TV AUDIO inputs.

Here is how it is connected.

The cable from the Satellite is connected to the Dish Receiver 311 in the port labelled "SATELLITE IN"

The CABLE TV Cable is connected to a port labelled ANTENNA/CATV Input

I have an AV Output going to a receiver.

The Receiver an RX-V861 is connected to the HDTV via a fiber optic cable and HDMI Cable

if your TV has an audio out, you must run this to the RX-V861.

my system is as follows:

sat in to the Directivo unit. then video/audio out via RCA to the HDTV(waiting for my HD tivo unit to come in so no HDMI on it)

Antenna connected to the TV Antenna/cable in

HDDVD conencted to HDMI 1 of the TV

Digital audio out from TV connected to my JVC RX so that no matter WHAT source i am watching i have full surround sound.

i never hook to teh Antenna in onthe sat RX, too much loss for me being that i don't have cable available. i could barely pick up 1 OTA channel using the antenna in. by hooking my antenna direct to the TV, i get 12 channels! adn 6 of those are full blown digital.

i don't know about Dish, but with Directv you must turn the sat RX off in order for teh cable channels to pass thru and feed the coax connection on the TV.