I'm upgrading my home cinema system and need some connection advice if you can bear it. None of the posts I've read seem to mirror my situation, and I want to order the right connects asap.

Kit owned or on order: Panasonic LCD TV - TX32 LXD-700 (3 HDMI), 2 Scarts.
Sky HD box - 1 HDMI and 2 Scart.
Onkyo TXSR605 receiver 2 HDMI in - 1 out.
Panasonic DVDR DMR-EX77 - 1 HDMI, 2 Scarts.

Obviously I want to play to the tv from Sky HD and the DVDR in the best quality and play pictures from the first to the latter.

What's confusing me is that the Onkyo will accept two HDMI devices and output to the TV by HDMI (presumably I'd have to power up the amp to watch tv). Alternatively I could connect the HDMI outputs from these boxes directly to the 2 HDMI sockets on the TV, (linking the boxes to each other by scart?) and just connect their digi audio outs to the Onkyo.

Which is preferable or is there another way? One key factor is that I don't want to turn on more than the minimum number of power hungry boxes and my other half wants to be able to watch tv and play dvds without reading a manual.

Just to mess everything up, I want to copy the best of my VHS recordings to the DVDR. Is there a smart or easy way to add the VCR in without using a scart switch or replugging or can I use the amp to record video one to the other? Don't laugh - I've never used an av amp before.

Any advice very gratefully received but keep it simple - my brain's fried!

Thanks all.
Last edited by Jazzer : 13-11-2007 at 00:10

Probably the best way would be to connect each device via it's own dedicated HDMI lead to the TV. This is because all flat panel TVs introduce a processing delay in order to display the picture (even from a digital source). Were you to go via the AV amp the audio would be slightly (but still noticably) ahead of the pictures. To get the audio to your AV amp, you then need to connect an optical lead from the TV (I am sure your model has optical out) to the AV amp (in theory, the TV's optical out feed should have the same delay as the pictures keeping everything nicely in sync, or at least that is the idea). This set up will be easy for everyday TV watching and should still giving you the option of switching on your AV amp for the full surround experience if you need it.

I said "should" in the last sentence as there is only one blott on the horizon, and that is that not all HDMI devices support multichannel audio via the HDMI connection. You will probably be alright but you will need to test you are getting true 5.1 audio and not loud phasey stereo (you can test everything by connecting either an optical or co-axial digital lead from the source and seeing if the audio is the same, make sure you are playing the 5.1 soundtrack from a pre recorded DVD and / or you are watching a programme that has DD [Dolby Digital] in the Sky HD box information banner (lots of the movies have this). Also make sure you have set the DVD-R and your Sky HD box to send Multi channel audio via the digital outputs.

Finally you can connect your VHS machine to your DVD-R via SCART to make your copies (should you need to watch a VHS tape you can turn on the DVD-R and select AV in and the VHS picture will appear on the DVD-R's HDMI input).

I hope this helps.

Thanks very much Masteriser, this gives me a really good start. You answered questions I didn't ask but would have done next time too! Cheers I'll give it a go. Jazzer

Oops, just one little mistake there, I should have said the VHS picture will appear via the DVD-Rs HDMI OUTPUT, I hope my error did not confuse things.

Masteriser