Hook up help please (1 Viewer)

[swagfu]

Hi all,

I am new to the HDMI community and am not sure I totally understand everythig when it comes to hooking up my new products. The salesman tried to help, but things were going over my head. Any help will be appreciated. I just purchased a Sony STR DG-920 and a Sony Blu-Ray BDP-S360. I have a Mitzubishi 60" DLP about a year old. Oh, and a cable box with HDMI DVR. My goal is to be able to watch TV without having to have the receiver on and still be able to take advantage of the best possible video and sound while watching a movie through the Blu-ray.

The salesman said that I should hook the cable box and the blu-ray directly to the TV. Then use an optical cable for the sound from the TV to the Receiver. But, since I have no clue about this stuff (yet), I have a few questions.

1. Will this work?
2. Do I lose any capabilities doing it this way?
3. If I put the HDMI cable to the receiver and an HDMI to the TV from the receiver, will I have to have the receiver on to watch regular TV without using the receiver speakers?
4. If this was your systrm, which would you choose?
5. If I do all HDMI, is there a special brand or style I need to have? They had them where I bought the receiver and blu-ray, but I know there must be something of quality out there for less than $100.
6. My HDMI cables are about 1.5 years old. The salesman said I might have to get all new ones due to technology. Both cables I currently have say 1.3 on them, but he was talking about 1.3b. Does this make a difference?

I am sure that once I get everything hooked up I will have other questions. Thank you for helping me out with this. Hopefully I got a good set up with these two items. Got them both for under $500 total.

 

[Stephen Tu]

Originally Posted by swagfu

The salesman said that I should hook the cable box and the blu-ray directly to the TV. Then use an optical cable for the sound from the TV to the Receiver. But, since I have no clue about this stuff (yet), I have a few questions.

1. Will this work?
2. Do I lose any capabilities doing it this way?

Shouldn't do it this way. Salesmen are dolts sometimes, they pass off info as facts when they don't know for certain, or only think they know. Hooking up this way, depends on the exact TV, but almost always you get 2.0 sound only (if any sound at all), you lose the 5.1 surround. The TVs optical output can only be counted on to give 5.1 from the internal tuner (cable hooked up directly from splitter bypassing cable box), not external components.

3. If I put the HDMI cable to the receiver and an HDMI to the TV from the receiver, will I have to have the receiver on to watch regular TV without using the receiver speakers?
4. If this was your systrm, which would you choose?

Definitely this is the way to go, especially for the Blu-ray. I would definitely use it for cable box also; you pay for this good sound system, why not enjoy it as much as possible? There are plenty of shows on cable that benefit from good audio, 5.1 even on a lot of HD primetime shows. I haven't used TV speakers for something like 15 years. A good universal remote turns both the receiver & TV on/off together, so it's no hassle to use both.

For the cable box, if you really, really want to not have the receiver on, then run HDMI from cable box to TV, and optical or coax from the cable box to the receiver.

5. If I do all HDMI, is there a special brand or style I need to have? They had them where I bought the receiver and blu-ray, but I know there must be something of quality out there for less than $100.
6. My HDMI cables are about 1.5 years old. The salesman said I might have to get all new ones due to technology. Both cables I currently have say 1.3 on them, but he was talking about 1.3b. Does this make a difference?

Don't need new ones. No difference. If it matters you would see it on screen, no picture or "sparkles" from pixels dropping out, but you won't unless a really long run or a bad cable. Never buy HDMI from local store if you can help it, unless under $20 if you just can't stand waiting a few days to use your system. Get online from monoprice.com , short cables are under $5.