Control Source - LCD vs Receiver

[AP-123]

What is the general preference out there for control sources? My new LCD has three HDMI inputs and I'm about to buy a new receiver and BD player.

Being new at all of this, I must ask. Is it easier to control your sources through the LCD or Receiver? I'm curious what the difference is with the user interface.

I'm looking at the Yamaha 663 or the Denon 3808. As for BD, I'm still looking and not sure if going with PS3 is the choice because I'm not a gamer. However, I am very interested in finding a way to serve my over 600 gigs of mp3s and movies collection.

Any comments are greatly appreciated. This forum is amazing.

Thank you,
AP

 

[MDS]

The receiver is the brains of the system and the majority would connect all source components to the receiver first then a single video connection to the LCD.

If everything is connected to the LCD first there are a number of drawbacks:
1. You have to switch the input on the LCD and the receiver. This can be made easier with a macro on a universal remote but letting the receiver do the switching is far simpler and less error prone.

2. The digital output of a TV is sometimes restricted to only passing DD or PCM from the TV's internal tuner. This is slowly changing as my Toshiba LCD will be pass DD if the source is connected via HDMI. However, you cannot get any other audio format like DTS or any of the new HD audio formats.

 

[AP-123]

Thanks for the prompt reply!

I guess the only drawback that I can think of by sending the BD and DirectTV signals through the receiver is that you always have to use the receiver.

There are times where I just want to watch the news and don't want to deal with the receiver - I can get over that.

Any suggestions on BD or Receiver? Will I need or want to get a universal remote? This may not be the correct thread for these questions.

Thanks again,
AP