Newbie here... Help!

[gpaaib]

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post (and I'm sure it won't be my last) so first I would like to say hi.

Ok, so my wife went out and bought a TV and Blu-ray unit. I also have a cox cable box and Sony 7.1 receiver to add to the mix.

To be thorough the units are:

55" 2160p Smart w/ webOS 3D Ultra HD 4k
model #55UB8500

Sony 3D Streaming Blu-ray Player - WiFi - 4k upscaling
model #BDP-S6200

Sony 7.1 Receiver (running 5.1)
model #STR-DG820

Cox Communication Cable/DVR box w/HDMI

My first question is, with the exception of the speaker wires of course, will simply running HDMI cables be sufficient to run the other units together, or is there better ways possible?

Thanks so much for you help.

Gary

 

[sdifox]

you may need to bypass the receiver to get 4k from bluray player to play on the tv. And there is no guarantee your TV's 4K talks to sony's 4k, standard is still being finalised.

the cable box can go to receiver through hdmi.

 

[gpaaib]

Ok, so let's see how much I understand.

Blu-ray to TV with HDMI cable
Cable box to Receiver with HDMI cable
Receiver to TV with HDMI cable

And that get the 5.1 audio from the Blu-ray and TV to the Receiver?

 

[sdifox]

Ok, so let's see how much I understand.

Blu-ray to TV with HDMI cable
Cable box to Receiver with HDMI cable
Receiver to TV with HDMI cable

And that get the 5.1 audio from the Blu-ray and TV to the Receiver?

you should try player to receiver first, see if it works ok. Otherwise you need to check the tv for a digital audio output to loop back to receiver if you do a direct player-tv connection.

 

[gpaaib]

Oh, ok. Thanks so much for your help.

 

[queequeg99]

Otherwise you need to check the tv for a digital audio output to loop back to receiver if you do a direct player-tv connection.

Just to add a bit to this one point (I would still try sdifox's other suggestions first), you might (and probably should) have some sort of clearly labelled digital audio out from your TV that you could hook into your receiver (either optical or coax). However, in many instances, this will be limited to 2-channel sound. A quick look at the specs for this TV seems to indicate that you will run into this limitation. For surround sound, you will likely have to rely on HDMI-ARC (audio return channel). Enabling this can be a bit of a pain and requires that both your TV and receiver support it. Your TV does support it. A very quick google search came up with mixed answers on your receiver so you should check the manual.

In my experience, setting up HDMI-ARC can be a hit or miss proposition. As mentioned above, both TV and receiver need to support it. Additionally, you will typically have to go through setup processes on both units to get it to work. These processes are not always explained accurately in manuals. You might need to first enabled HDMI-CEC on one or both units and then enable ARC. The HDMI cable might need to be plugged into a specific HDMI plug in the TV. And even then it might not work since many manufacturers implement some proprietary version of the HDMI-ARC with special little features that somehow manage to create more problems.

All of this is assuming you want to watch 4k materials with surround sound.

Notwithstanding the potential problems, there is a silver lining. If your receiver supports neither HDMI-ARC nor 4K pass-through, you've just found a perfect reason to pick up a new AVR.

EDIT: after clicking through a few more hits on google, it's looking more and more like your AVR doesn't support HDMI-ARC. But again, check the manual.

 

[gpaaib]

So a new receiver it is.

 

[queequeg99]

So a new receiver it is.

I would still do what sdifox suggested and try it through the receiver to see if it works. Who knows, it just might. If it doesn't, try connecting the BD player directly to the TV, play a 4K source, and at least see if the TV will accept a 4K signal from the BD player. If the TV won't display a picture properly, there's no sense in upgrading the receiver as it's only going to pass a signal the TV cannot handle.

Assuming that the TV can handle a 4K signal from the BD player, then yes, looking at a new AVR is your next step. One really good option on a modest budget would be the Denon E400. You can often find it for $299 on sale (Frys, Best Buy, and Amazon put it on sale every few weeks or so it seems). It has 4K pass-through plus Audyssey MultiEQ room correction, which should really improvement how your surround sound setup sounds.

 

[gpaaib]

So is the Denon E400 a better receiver than the Denon AVR-S700W? That's the one I've been looking at.

 

[s44]

My advice is hold off and let the TV upscale instead of the Blu-Ray. The problem is that there's really no good AVR to buy for 4K: you can either get the full 4:4:4 colorspace (Denon) or support for HDCP 2.2 which Blu-Rays actually encoded in 4K will require (Onkyo). This should be fixed by 2015, but not this year.

 

[queequeg99]

So is the Denon E400 a better receiver than the Denon AVR-S700W? That's the one I've been looking at.

I'm not familiar with the S700W. But in looking at the main Denon thread over at avsforum.com, it appears that that unit is better. It all depends on what you're looking for, however. Of particular concern to you is that the E400 will pass through 4K signals at just 30fps while the S700W supports 60. I honestly don't know how much of a difference this makes since I don't have a 4K setup. But since that's something that might be important to you, you might want to consider it.

Another thing I personally would really like in the S700W is the support for bluetooth. This would be huge for me since I am not an Apple guy. Denon has always supported Airplay and the lack of bluetooth support for Android devices has irritated me. But that might not be an issue for you.

The S700W has the same level of Audyssey as the E400, which is good.

Those main points jump out at me. But there are tons of features on these things. You might want to look through the avsforum thread to see if you can learn more. Here it is:

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/90-re...es-x-series-avr-model-owner-s-thread-faq.html

Of course, the S700W appears to cost a bit more. I don't know what kind of discounts you might be able to get from authorized resellers.

 

[s44]

I'm sorry, but since you don't understand 4K issues, you shouldn't be giving advice that will cause OP to waste money.

 

[queequeg99]

My advice is hold off and let the TV upscale instead of the Blu-Ray. The problem is that there's really no good AVR to buy for 4K: you can either get the full 4:4:4 colorspace (Denon) or support for HDCP 2.2 which Blu-Rays actually encoded in 4K will require (Onkyo). This should be fixed by 2015, but not this year.

Point well taken. If 4K pass-through isn't needed, a new AVR certainly isn't needed and I don't know that the features offered by a newer AVR are worth the price if OP hasn't missed them up to now.