Help: Advice to dad...

GTaudiophile

Lifer
Oct 24, 2000
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My dad just "mirrored" my recent purchases. He bought the same Panasonic DMP-BD85K BR player and Panasonic VIERA TC-P50G25 HDTV. We both took advantage of the "free" soundbar deal that Amazon was offering, but in his case, I doubt he will be using it. He just got it to have it as a back-up.

Anyway, he does not need the soundbar because he already has a pretty good receiver + 5.1 setup. That said, his receiver is a good 5 years old and does not feature HDMI inputs/outputs.

My advice to him in terms of wiring is as follows:

HDTV >>>HDMI>>> BR Player >>>SPDIF>>> Receiver

Is this correct? Should he anticipate any problems?

Thanks.
 

Anubis

No Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
78,712
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tbqhwy.com
he shouldn't have issues sending vid only to the TV and sound through any other format to the receiver. my dad does HDMI-TV and Optical to the receiver
 
Feb 10, 2000
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I used to do this before I picked up my current receiver a few years ago (a Denon AVR-3808ci). What you're proposing should work fine. This kind of setup became a bottleneck for my old receiver because my TV (which is now 5 years old) only had a couple of HDMI inputs. Most modern sets have more inputs and this should work fine. Actually a nice Christmas gift for him would be a Harmony remote, because the only problem with the setup you're suggesting is that he will otherwise have to manually switch the inputs on both his TV and receiver, whereas the Harmony can automatically make all required changes.