[Ant Man]

Hi

I'm been given conflicting advice on how to connect a HD TV, Yamaha soundbar, Humax HDR Fox T2 3D HD blu-ray player.

Dealer 1 suggests connecting Humax to TV via HDMI and player to TV via HDMI and then TV to soundbar via optical audio.

Dealer 2 suggests connecting Humax to TV via HDMI and player to TV via HDMI and also to the soundbar via HDMI then TV to soundbar via HDMI.

I understood that HDMI was better for sound than optical audio as it supports true HD sound and other high-end formats that optical audio cannot.

Either set-up is compatible as there are plenty of HDMI and optical audio connectors.

Which set up is best pls?

[IanS100]

Have a look here

[Ant Man]

Thanks, that's fairly conclusive.

Do I need 4 HDMI cables or just 3? I.e should will the player send the picture to the TV and via a separate HDMI, send the sound to the soundbar?

[TMP]

based on your system HDMI will be spot on. Oh, and you dont need to spend much on HDMI cables either.

I think only purists use Optical cables, and even then, that may be changing....

Originally Posted by Ant Man

Do I need 4 HDMI cables or just 3? I.e should will the player send the picture to the TV and via a separate HDMI, send the sound to the soundbar?

Assuming you want to use the yamaha for normal TV as well...so use a HDMI from the Bluray player to tv, then tv to soundbar (if the TV has a HDMI out - check the manual?)

[Ant Man]

Originally Posted by TMP

based on your system HDMI will be spot on. Oh, and you dont need to spend much on HDMI cables either.

I think only purists use Optical cables, and even then, that may be changing....

Assuming you want to use the yamaha for normal TV as well...so use a HDMI from the Bluray player to tv, then tv to soundbar (if the TV has a HDMI out - check the manual?)

Yes, I would like to use the Yamaha for normal TV sound. The TV does not appear to output HDMI; it does have digital optical output, spec is here: http://www.panasonic.co.uk/html/en_G...trackInfo=true

[davyk31]

I went through all this recently but have a sky + HD box. The advice seemed to be to use an optical cable from it to the amp in my home cinema kit. Is this correct or is HDMI better?

[seanblee]

Originally Posted by IanS100

Have a look here

Sorry, slightly OT, but there's a lot of rubbish on that page.

With the amount of data that a HDMI cable is required to carry, construction materials are more important in HDMI cables as compared to traditional coaxial cables. This is especially true if you are after a longer cable. HDMI cables are best kept less than 5 meters in length. Longer cables will cause signal attenuation, losing more of its signal strength as the length increases.

HDMI carries a digital signal with error checking and correction, so you can actually get away with a lower quality cable than for analog coax signals. The cable has no influence on the 'character' of the signal, unlike analog - if it works, it's perfect.

Optical cables only support digital audio signal due to the nature of it being pulses of light. There can be only an on-state and an off-state in and optical cable.

When comparing to HDMI, that's irrelevant - HDMI carries digital bitstreams too.

Both optical and HDMI Cable can transmit audio signal of up to 24 bits but HDMI cables can transmit up to 8 simultaneous channels while optical cables can only typically transmit up to 2 channels.

I'm happily transporting DTS and Dolby Digital down an optical cable from a blu-ray player to a receiver. Optical can only carry two channels of PCM audio, but nobody uses PCM for multi-channel signals anyway.

HDMI cables have the bandwidth to support 2 popular advanced lossless audio compression technologies, namely the Dolby TrueHD and the DTS-HD Master Audio. These are very high quality audio signals usually requiring up to 8 RCA cables just for the audio stream alone. The ability for HDMI cables to transport these signals within the single core cable is by itself a good reason to upgrade if your home theater set up does not yet support HDMI cables.

The HDMI cable is carrying an eight-channel digital bitstream, where the RCA cables would each be carrying a single channel of analog audio. There's no real comparison to be made between the two.

Back to OP's question... You have to switch the HDMI signals somewhere. It's unlikely the TV will feed an audio bitstream back to the soundbar, so assuming the soundbar has multiple HDMI inputs and one or more outputs, I'd run the Humax and player by HDMI to the soundbar, then run HDMI from the soundbar to the TV. You then switch source by selecting the HDMI input on the TV and choose either the player or the Humax on the soundbar. What make/model TV and what model soundbar do you have?

[Ant Man]

All, thanks for input so far.

Sean
Tv is Panasonic TXP42G30
Player is Panasonic DMP310
Soundbar is Yamaha YSP2200
PVR is Humax Fox T2

I've been reliably informed (my brother-in-law has reviewed the specs / manuals) that dealer one's suggestion is fine. No difference in sound quality between HDMi and digital optical.

[seanblee]

I'm not sure I agree. The TV won't pass the unaltered bitstream from its HDMI inputs straight out of its optical output as this would break HDCP (copyright protection) - it's likely it'll just pass an unencoded PCM stereo signal out of the audio output, which your soundbar might upsample to a surround signal, but it's not going to be as good.

The soundbar has three HDMI inputs and one output, so I'd stick with plugging the PVR and player into the soundbar with HDMI, then plugging the soundbar into the TV with HDMI. You'll get the best possible quality that way and don't have to bother with optical cables.

[seanblee]

Also, looks like both the TV and soundbar support Audio Return Channel (TV on HDMI input 2), which lets you funnel audio from the TV back to the soundbar without an extra cable, so you don't lose anything by sticking with HDMI throughout.

[Ant Man]

OK, many thanks. How on earth is layman supposed to know all this stuff?

If the Soundbar feeds the TV. How will the visual signals get to the TV? Will it send both the audio and visual signals?

[seanblee]

Yep - the HDMI from the soundbar to the TV will carry the video from the attached players

[Ant Man]

Originally Posted by seanblee

Yep - the HDMI from the soundbar to the TV will carry the video from the attached players

Hi,

I spoke to What HiFi today (as they have recently tested the products I'm buying) and they confirmed your recommended set up.

So thanks very much again.

One last question. Is there any point getting a better quality aerial lead, i.e. with better shielding?

[seanblee]

What, didn't you trust me?

There is if you have problems with your TV picture breaking up / going blocky, but if it's fine, there's no point - again, with digital, if enough signal is getting there, you won't make it better by adding more.

[misterS3]

I've got Yamaha 2200

Everything goes into it, and use the ARC to go to the TV. That way the unit will switch on and off with the TV. Great bit of kit. You'll love it once you've set it up properly.

Use the cheapest HDMI cables you can find. It either works or doesn't with digital.

Enjoy

[Ant Man]

Originally Posted by seanblee

What, didn't you trust me?

There is if you have problems with your TV picture breaking up / going blocky, but if it's fine, there's no point - again, with digital, if enough signal is getting there, you won't make it better by adding more.

My brother-in-law having read your post also agrees.

I live in an area where Freeview is not officially yet available but our TV says the signal strength is high. At least once a day the picture does break up. I'm hoping once the digital signal is switched on in April it will be fine but I've bought a better quality cable to minimise interference just in case.

Many thanks.

[Ant Man]

Originally Posted by misterS3

I've got Yamaha 2200

Everything goes into it, and use the ARC to go to the TV. That way the unit will switch on and off with the TV. Great bit of kit. You'll love it once you've set it up properly.

Use the cheapest HDMI cables you can find. It either works or doesn't with digital.

Enjoy

Thanks for the advice. It's what my brother-in-law said too.