I'm thinking about purchasing the Panasonic TH-37PX70 but I'm wanting to spend a bit of money on a surround sound setup too.

I've been looking around a different sets but I'm a bit confused and I'm hoping someone can clear it up for me. I'll be wanting to use it with the TV, Xbox 360 and possibly an external DVD player.

Originally, I thought that I could just plug the setup into my TV and then my 360 and DVD player would be able to use surround sound but the more I look around it doesn't seem like this is the case. All of the surround sound kits I look at seem to come with DVD players which is really confusing, especially as I don't NEED another DVD player Whilst researching I've also read about decoders too but I have no idea if I need one of those or if the TV already has one in or whatever.

Please help, I'm really confused

Go to a hifi shop (Richer Sounds are very good) and buy an 'AV receiver' and '5.1 speaker set'.

You should get a great entry level system and some change from £300.

Cheers. I'll have a look. What does an AV receiver do, exactly? Is that the decoder that I've been reading about? I'm assuming that I'll plug the 5.1 speaker set into the AV receiver and then the receiver into whatever I want to output sound from (TV, 360, DVD Player etc)?

It's a decoder/amplifier/tuner combined.

It has loads of sockets on the back, which you connect all of your items into and the speakers plug into there too.

Ok. How will it deal with different sources? For example, I don't think any TV is broadcast in 5.1, is it? So will this just output as 2.1 via the front two speakers and sub? Then, why I run a 5.1 source, such as the 360, it will use all of the speakers?

Basically, yeah.

Although you can 'simulate' surround sound and use every speaker.

Only pure Dolby Digital stereo sound will be automatically played in 2.1 or 2.0 only. Most Nicam stereo sources will play in Dolby Pro-Logic by default on an AV receiver, using the centre and rear speakers same as on a TV that comes with surround and centre channel speakers.

Just to clarify one point.

With an AV Amplifier (or "receiver" if it has an FM tuner built in too) you don't send audio from the TV to the amp, you only plug the TV into it so that it can show the pictures.

The pictures on the TV and the sound is generated by the sources you plug into the AMP.

Sources will be your Set top box, DVD player/recorder, game console, etc...

In some cases, you might split the video from the audio, so you send the video direct from the sources to the TV, and the sound to the amp. This is a bit more complicated, as you then have to select the input being used on two devices - the amp and the TV.

Just to expand on this a little - you certainly can send audio from your TV to the amplifier. Anybody who has an idTV will be doing this if they want to listen to their digital Freeview TV in surround sound. I currently have my DVD player, my Sky HD box, my VCR and my TV all individually feeding their audio outputs to my receiver. That way, whatever I am watching on the TV including Freeview can send its audio output to the amplifier for some format of surround sound (DTS or DD for DVD, DD or DS for Sky, DPL for VCR and TV).

I would have to say sources would include the TV, especially if you wanted surround sound (DPL) from the inbuilt tuner(s) analogue/digital freeview.

Handy if you have a digibox and recorder but not a PVR (Sky+) because you can then listen to the TV in surround when the digibox is unavailable.

It can also save on connections when a VCR/Digibox or equipment where you are not relying on DD5.1 is used. There is no need to hook this equipment up to the amp if the TV is connected to the amp via it's audio outs, as the audio is fed to the amp to whatever is on screen.

The amp can also be used for video switching, this doesn't mean the amp is showing the pictures as such, it's just loops the signal through it's circuitry. This is normally used when there are limited connections available to you.

Then you get into the video conversion territory. Some amps can convert composite to component/HDMI, upscale etc.

Separating video from the audio is normally done when you want to benefit from the sources DD5.1, DVD/Sky+. You would connect the source to TV, then using the digital connection, connect the source to the amp. Just a case of switching on the amp, selecting the source, if scart is being used to connect DVD/Sky to the TV, this will normally switch to the correct AV channel.