Need help hooking up surround sound

Okay so here is my story....

I have a dvd player surround sound combo...all the speakers hook into the dvd player and the player has options to switch aux in blah blah blah..

I also have a cable box and in order to get audio onto my surround sound speakers while watching tv, I have to hook up the audio cables from the dvd surround system to the cable box.

Now how do I watch a movie in surround sound cuz its not working? Pull the audio cables out of the cable box and put them into the tv?

Any help with this would be great, even a diagram or something that shows how to hook up multiple units to a dvd surround sound (I have an xbox 360 I want hooked up to it too, it has to be possible to hook up the cable box, xbox, and tv all at once right?)

What type of inputs (RCA, optical, etc.) and how many auxiliary inputs does the DVD player/amp have? If you don't have enough extra inputs, you can add an audio switch to provide them (either RCA or optical as needed).

Does the cable box or the TV have surround sound outputs?

I used a switch made for the purpose, until I bought a surround receiver with enough inputs.