Sorry if this is a dumb question! Just upgraded to a DVR530, and I'm trying to work out if it can be connected to our (oldish)
Surround Sound system. The DVR has optical sound output, the sound box only has the six separate plugs for 5.1 sound connection - is there any way of connecting these two units??

I'm afraid that you're going to need to have something to convert the Digital Sound into the output destined for each speaker...

Thanks for that - any idea what the something may be, and where I may find one. I'm very much a novice at all of this.....

OK...

To get surround sound into your speakers, you need the following components:

1) A device to get the digitial signals off the DVD (a DVD player)
2) A device to convert the digital signals into the output for each speaker (a processor, or preamp)
3) A device to amplify the signal for each speaker (a multi-channel amplifier)

It sounds as if your previous set-up had a DVD player with an integrated processor (doing jobs 1&2), and a separate multi-channel amplifier.

Nowadays, it is much more common for the DVD player to do no processing of the signal at all. Instead, you tend to get devices which do both 2) and 3), called surround sound amplifiers. They often include a radio tuner as well, in which case they are called a receiver.

As I see it, you have two options:
A) Get a stand-alone surround-sound processor or pre-amp.
B) Replace your current amplifier with an integrated surround-sound amplifier or receiver.

I suspect that option B) might be the cheapest (the first page I tried randomly on the web had them for £150 - I would expect to find them cheaper if I looked round a bit).

See http://hometheater.about.com/od/home...tbasicfaq2.htm
for a bit more explanation.

Many thanks for the explanation - understand it now. Will go have a look whats on offer.....