Need some help with connections...

[youyou]

Hi,
Please forgive me if I have posted this question in the wrong section.
So I have a few questions and hopefully you can help me with them
First off I am almost done setting up my home theater setup. I have a Panasonic Plasma 5060u that i just purchased with a Harman Kardon Avr240 receiver, the Bose Acoustimass 16 speaker system, Direct tv philips tivo, xbox 360, Toshiba d-r5 dvd recorder with hdmi connection and FTA Coolsat 6000. So here goes and please correct me if i'm doing something wrong...
I will be connecting my Bose speaker system to my Hk receiver secondly my direct tv will be connected to the HK via s-video and optical, the FTA will be connected to the HK via component cable and optical audio, the xbox360 will be connected to the HK via component and optical audio. Now the dvd will be connected via hdmi to the tv but WHAT do i use to connect it to the HK receiver and here comes the big stupid question on my part... How do i get all that to work on my tv. What and how am i connecting my HK receiver to my tv.??? So that all my components work seemlessly with my Plasma.

As well i'd like to know if there is a difference between generic hdmi cables and say a Monster cable? My electrician brought me a 6meter (20ft) hdmi connector from some generic brand that iv'e never heard of and i'm just worried that i won't get the best picture quality... I have a Monster400 2meter hdmi cable that i used before on my previous dvd player and was very happy with it. And when you put both hdmi cables side by side the Monster hdmi cable looks much better and feels better but is it actually better???
The generic 20ft hdmi cable cost me 100$ Canadian where as the Monster one would cost me 3 times the price...
So hopefully you wonderful people can help me out with all this...
By the way all my optical cables and my s-video cable are also generic. Does a name brand make a difference for these as well?
Thank you all very much .

 

[Sheep]

Where do you live? If its in BC (vancouver and surrounding area) I would glady come over and help.

What brand is the cable the guy brought? Send the monster back, its too much(trust me, I worked at Best Buy). You'd be best off sticking with that cheap stuff. Monster is a rip off.

SheepStar

 

[MDS]

You listed component video as the video connection for all devices except direct-tv which will be s-video, therefore you want to make a component video connection from the receiver's component video out to the plasma. The receiver must have the ability to transcode s-video to component video or the direct-tv will not work through the receiver. If the receiver has that capability, then everything will work; if not, then you will have to downgrade all of your devices to s-video or connect the direct-tv directly to the plasma.

Because the dvd player will be connected directly to the plasma and does not go through the receiver, you will have to switch the tv to the hdmi input and then separately switch the receiver to the dvd input (you can program a macro to do it if you have a good universal remote). You might consider ditching the hdmi connection and using component video cables for the dvd player as well - doing so eliminates the need to switch the video input on the tv as the receiver will switch audio and video at the same time. That is the main advantage of connecting everything through the receiver - the plasma stays on the input to which you connected the component video cables and never needs to be changed independently of the receiver input.

 

[Buckeye_Nut]

I will be connecting my Bose speaker system to my Hk receiver secondly my direct tv will be connected to the HK via s-video and optical, the FTA will be connected to the HK via component cable and optical audio, the xbox360 will be connected to the HK via component and optical audio. Now the dvd will be connected via hdmi to the tv but WHAT do i use to connect it to the HK receiver and here comes the big stupid question on my part... How do i get all that to work on my tv. What and how am i connecting my HK receiver to my tv.??? So that all my components work seemlessly with my Plasma.

As well i'd like to know if there is a difference between generic hdmi cables and say a Monster cable? My electrician brought me a 6meter (20ft) hdmi connector from some generic brand that iv'e never heard of and i'm just worried that i won't get the best picture quality... I have a Monster400 2meter hdmi cable that i used before on my previous dvd player and was very happy with it. And when you put both hdmi cables side by side the Monster hdmi cable looks much better and feels better but is it actually better???
The generic 20ft hdmi cable cost me 100$ Canadian where as the Monster one would cost me 3 times the price...
So hopefully you wonderful people can help me out with all this...
By the way all my optical cables and my s-video cable are also generic. Does a name brand make a difference for these as well?
Thank you all very much .

First of all, you should toss the S-VHS cable into retirement, and use component cable for your sat-video because S-VHS is an inferior connection.(especially so if you intend to view HD content)

2nd..... there is no reason to connect your receiver to your TV unless you want your receiver to do all the video switching. If that's the case, you will connect all of your video sources into your receiver, and then run set of component cables out to your TV. Then you can use your receiver to switch video sources. I currently run my DVD video through my receiver as described, but I run my HD-Sat video direct to the TV via DVI from the satbox. Either way will work just fine, and it just depends on your personal preferences.

3rd.....providing your cables are well made, they'll work just fine
So the question remains......... Did you buy quality generic brand cables, or cheaply built junk?