Connection advice (1 Viewer)

[thercoju]

I have just purchased my first HDTV. It is a Panasonic TC-P50ST30. I have a Panasonic DMP-BDT110P Blu Ray player, a Motorola DCH6416 DVR and a Yamaha RX-V661 AV receiver. My question is the best way to hook these together for optimum video, audio, and convenience. Should I run the DVR and Blu Ray to the TV with HDMI and then use the optical audio out from the TV to the receiver? Run video from boxes to TV via HDMI and then run audio from each box to receiver via digital audio? Or run the DVR and Blu Ray to the receiver via HDMI and then run audio and video from receiver to TV via HDMI? Does the age of the receiver (I think the owner's manual specified HDMI 1.2a support) mean that using it as the hub would degrade the video signal to the TV (esp. the 3D, I'd guess)? I've been trying to figure this out via Google, and my head is spinning. Thanks for any thoughts.

 

[thercoju]

Thanks, that's helpful. One other idea occurred to me (and excuse me if this shows my novice status). Would it work (make sense) to connect the DVR and Blu Ray to the TV with HDMI connections and then use the TV's HDMI connection that has Audio Return Channel capability to connect to the receiver as an audio out function? That would provide the best video connection (incl. 3D, which currently doesn't matter to me, but some day?) and then provide HDMI audio to the receiver (assuming that's how the ARC works)?

 

[conuronton]

The easiest way would be to use your receiver as the HDMI switch. BD and DVR HDMI to reciever, 1 HDMI out to TV. With this senario, you won't need any other audio cables unless you have an off-air antenna. If you do have an off-air antenna, you will just need to run an optical out from your TV to your reciever for off-air HD digital audio. theoretically every additional connection will effect signal - I'm not sure this is even true with HDMI..... If you spent big bucks on TV and cables - I would run HDMI straight to TV and opt/dig audio to receiver. The issue here is you will have to change your TV input source when changing from BD to DVR, which can be overcome by purchasing a remote that will do macro commands.