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OK, so I got my nice, shiny HDTV. I got myself a decent receiver and a set of speakers. I got a new upscaling DVD player.

And now for the life of me I can't figure out how to hook it all together. It doesn't help that the TV was an open box special (but jesus, what a special). But I'm at a total freaking loss and don't know where to start even. Is it plug ever component into the receiver, and then just have the HDMI output from the receiver going to the TV? Or does each source need a seperate output leading out from the receiver? If it does, what the hell is the point of the receiver?

And let's not even talk bout my wife's smart ass comments

My basic idea would be have everything go into the tv, then an audio out cables to receiver. Or you could do it through the receiver. Are you hooking up a lot of stuff? Or is this it?

You can do either or both, depending on what you have and what you need. The two simplest configurations would be to do all of the switching (video and audio) in one device.

If your receiver has high-quality video switching, then you can plug everything into the inputs of the receiver and just plug the video out from the receiver into the TV (using it as a monitor).

If your TV has plenty of inputs for everything, you can plug all of the inputs into the TV and just plug the audio out from the TV into the receiver.

In practice, I ended up doing both. I'm doing most of the switching in the TV, but the optical digital output from the disc player goes directly to the receiver.

Once you've got all of the snarl put together, you need to figure out how to work all of the different remotes.... OR... get a Logitech Harmony remote and let the web-based software figure out how to make it all work with one remote.

One thing you might want to consider:

Sometimes you may want to watch TV without having to have the receiver switched on. So using the inputs on the TV then outputting from there to the receiver may work best.

Tell the wife to go make you a sammich!

I personally don't use the video portion of my receiver, mostly because I have all HDMI devices and my receiver doesn't support HDMI. IMO, the video portion of the receiver is really only useful if you're short video inputs on the TV.

Anyway, If I were you, my chain would go thusly:

DVD player to TV via HDMI for video and optical/coax to receiver for audio. Select the DVD input on the TV and the DVD input on the receiver. That's it.

As for the point of the receiver, you need it to decode Dolby Digital and DTS bitstreams as well as provide power for your speakers.

thanks. I feel much less intimidated now. I didn't get around to trying it last night (busy de-crapping a new laptop). I will do so tonight

When I setup a home theater I usually run everything I can through the receiver. The receiver should have a bunch of options for enhancing your experience/immersion, such as audio syncing so that the lips and what you hear are synchronized.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

If your TV has plenty of inputs for everything, you can plug all of the inputs into the TV and just plug the audio out from the TV into the receiver.

Some TV's don't have the capacity to pass audio out to the receiver. (I remember someone on here having trouble with their xbox due to that exact issue)

titan wrote:

When I setup a home theater I usually run everything I can through the receiver. The receiver should have a bunch of options for enhancing your experience/immersion, such as audio syncing so that the lips and what you hear are synchronized.

My biggest problem with routing all video thru the receiver is that you lose the ability to calibrate picture information for each specific input. Instead all your sources are using the same TV input which means if you have to manually adjust settings each time you use a different source.

Vrock wrote:

titan wrote:

When I setup a home theater I usually run everything I can through the receiver. The receiver should have a bunch of options for enhancing your experience/immersion, such as audio syncing so that the lips and what you hear are synchronized.

My biggest problem with routing all video thru the receiver is that you lose the ability to calibrate picture information for each specific input. Instead all your sources are using the same TV input which means if you have to manually adjust settings each time you use a different source.

Hmm, good point... Do we know for sure that there aren't any receivers that allow video calibration?

Yay! It works! Well, one of my speakers doesn't But I think that's just a defective speaker (or a plug slipped, I'll test it out). But the picture's right, sound is coming out of one of my speakers...much, much better and now I got a nice home theater!!! Thanks guys!
PS--the Death Star exploding on a good upconverting DVD player on a good 50" HDTV....my day just got better!

Vrock wrote:

titan wrote:

When I setup a home theater I usually run everything I can through the receiver. The receiver should have a bunch of options for enhancing your experience/immersion, such as audio syncing so that the lips and what you hear are synchronized.

My biggest problem with routing all video thru the receiver is that you lose the ability to calibrate picture information for each specific input. Instead all your sources are using the same TV input which means if you have to manually adjust settings each time you use a different source.

I can't say that I've ever 'calibrated picture information'. It usually just works (TM)

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

Vrock wrote:

titan wrote:

When I setup a home theater I usually run everything I can through the receiver. The receiver should have a bunch of options for enhancing your experience/immersion, such as audio syncing so that the lips and what you hear are synchronized.

My biggest problem with routing all video thru the receiver is that you lose the ability to calibrate picture information for each specific input. Instead all your sources are using the same TV input which means if you have to manually adjust settings each time you use a different source.

I can't say that I've ever 'calibrated picture information'. It usually just works (TM)

This can be a nice feature if your TV has a picture setting it will default to depending on the input you select. You can have a "movie" setting for your DVD player, "gaming setting" for your gaming console, and "TV" setting for your cable box, as examples...

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

Vrock wrote:

titan wrote:

When I setup a home theater I usually run everything I can through the receiver. The receiver should have a bunch of options for enhancing your experience/immersion, such as audio syncing so that the lips and what you hear are synchronized.

My biggest problem with routing all video thru the receiver is that you lose the ability to calibrate picture information for each specific input. Instead all your sources are using the same TV input which means if you have to manually adjust settings each time you use a different source.

I can't say that I've ever 'calibrated picture information'. It usually just works (TM)

Brightness, contrast, color temperature, and color saturation all make a significant difference. The goal of home theater of any kind is to faithfully reproduce the theater experience in the home. Sets that aren't calibrated don't necessarily look bad, but it's a very safe bet that they don't look accurate. Taking half an hour with a basic calibration disc can go a long way toward fixing that, heck, even just taking the TV out of "Vivid" mode is an improvement. If you're really obsessive a full-fledged ISF calibration is the only way to go (I'm not quite that obsessive, mostly because I'm cheap).

david00214 wrote:

This can be a nice feature if your TV has a picture setting it will default to depending on the input you select. You can have a "movie" setting for your DVD player, "gaming setting" for your gaming console, and "TV" setting for your cable box, as examples...

Yup. Most decent sets these days have the ability to store picture settings for each individual input. Frankly that's a must have feature IMHO.

Mine has them, but until I get A: more than one input and B: a universal remote, they're not that high on my list to figure out. My next purchase is probably a PS3 to use as a BR player...at that stage I will first get a universal remote, and then start switching all the damn full screen movies I've got to wide screen blue ray (unless they're my older movies that were shot in non-widescreen, like some of the old Disney movies I have).

paulWTAMU wrote:

Mine has them, but until I get A: more than one input and B: a universal remote, they're not that high on my list to figure out. My next purchase is probably a PS3 to use as a BR player...at that stage I will first get a universal remote, and then start switching all the damn full screen movies I've got to wide screen blue ray (unless they're my older movies that were shot in non-widescreen, like some of the old Disney movies I have).

Keep in mind that unless you do some workarounds/spend money on adaptors, the universal remote won't work with the PS3.

Doh. Oh well...soon as my reward zone points come in I'll use them on the universal remote then, and maybe a PS3 (should be enough to cover a good part of those).

paulWTAMU wrote:

Doh. Oh well...soon as my reward zone points come in I'll use them on the universal remote then, and maybe a PS3 (should be enough to cover a good part of those).

IIRC correctly the PS3 remote is bluetooth. That's why you can't use just any universal remote for the PS3. If you google.... ah heck I'll do it

http://www.remotecentral.com/articles/ps3-ir-remote.htm

david00214 wrote:

paulWTAMU wrote:

Doh. Oh well...soon as my reward zone points come in I'll use them on the universal remote then, and maybe a PS3 (should be enough to cover a good part of those).

IIRC correctly the PS3 remote is bluetooth. That's why you can't use just any universal remote for the PS3. If you google.... ah heck I'll do it

http://www.remotecentral.com/articles/ps3-ir-remote.htm

Well, I still wonder when Logitech will get around to making a Harmony remote capable of controlling both the Xbox360 and the PS3. However, doesn't the PS3 even shutoff Bluetooth when its powered off?

Damn. I just looked at the BR selection on Amazon and it's still pretty skimpy. That makes the PS3 a lot lower priority since I mostly want it to watch movies with. The prices of the movies that are out aren't too bad---maybe a couple or three dollar premium over DVDs--but the selection...I thought the majors were all on board now?

paulWTAMU wrote:

Damn. I just looked at the BR selection on Amazon and it's still pretty skimpy. That makes the PS3 a lot lower priority since I mostly want it to watch movies with. The prices of the movies that are out aren't too bad---maybe a couple or three dollar premium over DVDs--but the selection...I thought the majors were all on board now?

I think there was some hesitancy to put all the eggs in one basket. Also, if you'll remember DVDs took a while to catch on too. It's just good that all the new movies that are going to be coming out will be on BluRay.

titan wrote:

However, doesn't the PS3 even shutoff Bluetooth when its powered off?

Don't know. All I know is that when I press the PS button on my Sixaxis (or bluray remote, for that matter), the unit powers on.