Hi,

I've just bought a Sony Bravia KDL-32V2500 and a SONY DAVDZ810 Homw cinema as well. I already have a Virgin HD box, question is what cables do I need to connect them all together. The sales bloke hit me with all this tech stuff and said it be another £120 for cables which was 2 HDMI cables and an optical cable. I declined his offer and said I'd sort somehting out. So any ideas on what I need and where to get it from. I already have a virgin hdmi cable which the salesman rubbished.

Thanks

Ally

As HDMI and optical cables are fully digital, there is rarely any benefit to buying high end cables. Most digital connections have error correction systems that will easily cope with the occasion guard band errors that occur in all digital connections.

Only when a cable is faulty or damaged will the rate of errors become so high that the error correction will be unable to cope leading to graining or blocking on video and chirping noises on the audio.

In general the mid-range and most expensive cables are more durable and less liky to become worn/damaged. They can also cope with cable lengths which are longer that the maximum length stated in the standards. I would recomend a mid-range cable if you are likely to be frequently moving or connecting/disconnecting your cables, or if you need cables of more than 5m in length. Even then £120 for 3 digital cables is just silly unless you are looking at over 10m.

The only time I would reccomend using £40 cabling would be if you were installing into an industrial or broadcast enviroments where they wre likely to be subjected to exceptionaly severe EM interference, heat or misuse.

However if (as with most installations) the cables will be rarely touched then the lower end cables will do just fine.

HDMI for the home cinema system 810 > TV. Don't be fooled buy the mega money cables. You should find something that does the job at around £10.

HDMI

Unsure why he has mentioned the optical cable, presumably for the V+, but the home cinema system has no optical input.

If you are wanting the audio from the V+ to the surround system this will have to be via the audio out (stereo phonos) on the V+ box to the Sony's audio inputs. This will give you surround sound but unfortunately not DD5.1.

Phonos

£15-£20 at most.

The salesman claimed the 810 has optical connection, and showed me a photo of the back of it.

My systems will all sit together so no cables of greater than one meter length.

thanks

Ally

The 810 does indeed have an optical input.

I had a look at two sites for the spec, both stated it had an optical, but it was an output, you would need an optical input for the V+. Knowing you would a need an input I thought I'd mention it. Just goes to show you can't trust everything you read on the net.

http://www.laskys.com/home_theatre/a...#specification

If it has an optical input you will of course need 1x optical cable. Again £10 would cover this. You would then be able to listen to DD5.1 when available. This would connect from the V+ > Sony 810.

Optical

Both cables will be available in 0.75m or 1m lengths.