AVR and HDMI connection question. (1 Viewer)

[kumar]

I am helping a friend to purchase his first HT Components.
He is looking at Onkyo 674 and Polk audio 6880.

He would, to begin with, be connecting the Cable/Sat to AVR in HDMI, AVR to TV in HDMI, DVD to AVR in Component, VCR to AVR in S-Video.

Here are my questions. Based on the above setup, if he chooses not to use his Surround Sound for Normal TV Viewing, can the singly connection of HDMI let the signal passthrough to his TV by keeping the AVR off. I think it is not possible to do this, but I could be wrong. My HT Setup (no HDMI, DVI), have a component running from AVR to TV and I keep the AVR off (with the standby power mode) and being analog and no processing is done, it lets me run through the AVR to TV. I am not sure if that is possible with HDMI. Secondly, if he has to still take the power of HDMI (which means to keep the AVR on), can he shut off the speakers and use only the TV Speaker? Ofcourse he can reduce the volume in the external speakers.

Finally, though I don't see it on the specs, does this model receiver upconverts S-Video, Composite to HDMI too? I thought I read this somewhere that it does.


Does anyone have this combination setup with Onkyo and Polk? what are your thoughts?

 

[John Brill]

Does the cable/sat box also have optical/coaxial output? If yes, does the box output over HDMI and optical/coaxial at the same time?

My thinking is having the HDMI connection go straight to the TV and having the optical/coaxial go to the AVR...

 

[kumar]

Yes the box has Coaxial. I have to try if it would do both HDMI and Coaxial at the same time.

Let me check this. Meanwhile, anyone has this combination of AVR and Speaker? how do they sound together?