Home theater wiring question

monkeydust

monkeydust

New member
This morning, I rewired my Samsung LED and my 12-year old Pioneer receiver so all sources were plugged into the TV via HDMI or component and then just used the digital audio out on my TV to go to the receiver. This saves me from needing to switch sources on the receiver and mute/power down the receiver to turn off sound. So, this is much more convenient now (should have figured this out years ago).

In my basement, I have a new Samsung TV and a newish Denon receiver. I have all the components plugged into the Denon and then an HDMI for two-way communication going to the TV (which supports source switching/volume control). There is a peculiarity related to the TiVo and this setup that make it somewhat inconvenient to use (always switches source to TV after a few secs when powering on that others with this setup experience as well with no good workaround).

My question is what are the benefits of plugging everything into the receiver and then having one HDMI communicating with the TV? Why wouldn't you just plug everything into the TV and then just have digital audio out going to the receiver like I just did this morning in my living room? I know I must be missing something since modern receivers have all these HDMI inputs and an output or two which would indicate that this would be the desired configuration.
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
I'm assuming cable management especially if wall mounting.
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Yeah, I'd give you that. With an entertainment center it would have no impact but if I wall mount my LCD in the basement, it would definitely come into play.

There's got to be more to it than that though.
 
Digital audio outs on TV's are typically just SPDIF over optical or coax. All you'll be able to get is vanilla DD5.1 or DTS. Having your sources go through your receiver first will make sure you can take full advantage of higher quality audio formats (like Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio if available).
 
DeathKnight said:
All you'll be able to get is vanilla DD5.1 or DTS.
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That's if he is lucky. Most tv's follow the "lowest common denominator" rule when audio is passed over HDMI. So if his blu-ray or dvd player is connected to the tv via HDMI, and the tv reports its a 2 channel audio device, then only stereo is sent over HDMI. That means anything connected to the tv will limit audio to 2 channel PCM, which in turn will be what gets sent to the receiver in the end.
 
DigitalDemon said:
That's if he is lucky. Most tv's follow the "lowest common denominator" rule when audio is passed over HDMI. So if his blu-ray or dvd player is connected to the tv via HDMI, and the tv reports its a 2 channel audio device, then only stereo is sent over HDMI. That means anything connected to the tv will limit audio to 2 channel PCM, which in turn will be what gets sent to the receiver in the end.
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This. All my devices except for the Wii are connected via receiver, then HDMI to the TV. I have optical going from the tv back to the receiver for OTA TV and the Wii.
 
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