How to connect home theater ?

Factual Questions
1

My head is going to explode … I’m in the market for a home receiver, trying to decide what features I should be looking for. I have:

  • a 42" plasma with 1 HDMI input and 2 component video inputs.
  • an HD cable box with HDMI and components outputs.
  • a regular DVD player (NOT upconverting) with component video outputs and digital audio output.
  • an old stereo VCR (just composite video out and stereo out)
  • a set of 5.1 speakers (subwoofer and 5 satellite speakers)

And, as mentioned above, I’m in the market for a relatively inexpensive ($300-400) home theater receiver that will allow me to:

  1. minimize the number of connections to the TV
  2. view HD TV without turning on the receiver
  3. view DVDs and HD TV in 5.1 sound.
  4. view VCR tapes in stereo.

Any ideas on the features I need in a receiver to accomplish this (video switching) ? And, how do I connect everything ?

Thanks !

2

There’s basically 2 methods of accomplishing this, both with their pros and cons.

The first method is to buy a very nice receiver with all the inputs and ouputs you’ll need and use it as the center of your system. That means running dvd, cable box, vcr audio and video to the receiver then running a dedicated video line from the receiver to the TV. The pros of this method are a centrally controlled system. You switch to cable on the receiver - the picture for cable comes up and the sound comes through your speakers, you switch to DVD on the receiver - the DVD picture comes up and the sound comes through your speakers.
The cons of this method are 1) You need extra cables for many things (component from DVD to receiver and then an extra component from receiver to TV)
2) You need an expensive receiver with all the ins/outs necessary
3) You will always have to have the receiver on when watching any video source.
4) You lack the “most direct” route for a video signal which may lead to signal degradation since it’s routed through the receiver.

The second method is to run each sources video directly to the TV, and each sources audio directly to the receiver. The pros of this method are 1) Least amount of cables used, 2) Best most direct video signal with no loss of signal, 3) You can watch a video source on the TV without turning on the receiver (but you will need to run a seperate audio line from the video source to the set to get any sound).
The con of this method is that every time you want to watch a different video source you have to switch the TV to that source AND you have to switch the reciever to that source. In addition you may run out of audio options like running audio from the DVD to both the receiver AND the TV.

I like using the second method however I always have the receiver on for sound. For example, my DVD player has component cables running from it to the TV and an optical audio cable running from it to the receiver.

3

Surely, if you want to watch HDTV with 5.1 sound, you’ll need to turn on the receiver?

You really want to minimise the number of steps between video source and your HDTV, every stage will degrade the picture quality.

I would do the following:

HDTV STB -> HDTV (HDMI)
DVD player -> HDTV (component) (or if you really must, to the receiver by component, but it will affect picture quality)
HDTV STB -> Receiver (digital audio)
DVD player -> Receiver (digital audio)
VCR -> Receiver (component & Stereo audio)

Reciever -> HDTV (component)

So you would need a Reciever with 2 digital inputs, one (or two) component video input, and one component video output. HDMI should carry audio, so if your HDTV has speakers then you will be able to watch TV without switching on the receiver.