New receiver need help

[Show900]

o I’m probably making this out to be way more complicated then it should be but here’s my issue.... so I got a new home theater (Sony strdh590) and I’m only hooking up cable box and surround sound speakers. Here’s my issue.... I could go with the hdmi arc and everything work great.... but I wanna be able to watch sports and listen to the built in radio on the home theater all at the same time. And if I go hdmi arc I can’t do that. So I was thinking about wiring the cable box right to the tv (like you would do if you didn’t have a home theater), and then running a digital optical cable from the tv or cable box to the home theater. Is this possible? There’s no “input” channel for just the digital optical cable. I guess I’d have to run AV cords along with digital optical cord?? What my easiest way to do this? It all comes down to the fact the I wanna be able to watch sports (with no sound) and listen to the radio through the surround speakers at the same time. I would also use the surround sound speakers with my cable channels. It’s just nice to watch a ball game on tv and the radio on at the same time sometimes. Thanks!!!!

 

[BMXTRIX]

Not sure with the Sony, but some receivers, when playing music only inputs will leave the TV on with whatever the last video source was.

If this isn't the case with the Sony, then you can connect your sources directly to the TV using HDMI cables, then use the optical audio out from the TV to the surround receiver.

It should be noted that with Blu-ray Disc or other sources with high quality audio (not cable boxes), you will take a hit in audio quality if you do things this way, and it would be better to run those sources directly to your A/V receiver and use the HDMI output of the A/V receiver to feed the TV.

Connections
Cable Box (HDMI) -> HDMI 2 of your TV
Blu-ray Disc Player (HDMI) -> Blu-ray Player input of A/V receiver
Game console (HDMI) -> Game input of your A/V receiver
A/V receiver HDMI ouptut -> HDMI 1 of your TV
TV optical audio output -> optical audio input of your receiver

In the SETUP section of the Sony A/V receiver, go to your input assign section and you can assign that digital audio input connection to ANY input you would like. Assign it to 'cable'. That way, when you switch the receiver to 'cable' it will play back audio from the TV. When you have your TV on HDMI 2, then cable will come out of that audio connection.

If you play back other content on your TV through built-in Smart applications like Netflix, then if you want to use the surround sound of your receiver, just turn it on and set it to 'cable' and it will play that audio back.

Setting it up this way also allows you to just leave the A/V receiver off if you want to just 'watch TV' without using the A/V receiver.