newb with hdmi connectivity question

[alaskaty]

Hi everybody! I've been purusing the forum for a while and haven't been able to find an answer to my question. First I'll give a little run down of what I have going on:
TV: Panasonic 65" plasma
Cable/DVR: AT&T Uverse
BD: Panasonic Blueray player
Receiver: Pioneer VSX819HK
CD player: Sony 5 disc changer
Gaming console: Nintendo Wii
Surround speakers: Energy Take Classic 5
Subwoofer: Energy ESW-V8

The problem I'm experiencing is this: I would like to connect my DVR (cable) to both my TV and my receiver so I can watch tv through the tv's speakers and be able to watch it through the surround for sports and movies. The back of the DVR has a single HDMI output that I can send either to my tv or to my receiver (but I don't want to have the receiver on everytime the tv is on).

What is my best option:
1. connect the DVR to the tv with hdmi and to the receiver with component
2. connect the DVR to the receiver with hdmi and to the tv with component
3. use a male to 2 Female splitter to run an hdmi to the receiver and one to the tv (i've heard the passive ones are pretty crummy)

Any and all input is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance and I hope to help out as much as I can in the future!

Jason

 

[adk highlander]

Hello alaskaty and welcome to the forum.

I would go with keeping the HDMI going to the receiver and out to the TV that way you get both the blue-ray and DVR using the best connection when you are using your surround sound. I would then go component from the DVR to the TV. You will still get up to the 1080i signal from the DVR and will not have to use any funky splitter. If you have a activity based remote control (harmony, URC) then it will handle the TV and receiver input switching when you are using the system either way.

 

[alaskaty]

Thanks for the input! I was thinking last night, and since I'm not sending video to the receiver, couldn't I just send an optical cable from my DVR to my receiver. That way I'd have digital video from the DVR to the TV no matter if I were using the tv's speakers or my surround speakers and digital audio via the HDMI in normal and optical in surround. Does this make sense or am I full of bologna?

No matter what, I'll have HDMI from the Blu-ray to the receiver and HDMI from the receiver to the tv. It's just the connection of the DVR that's got me confused.

 

[adk highlander]

Thanks for the input! I was thinking last night, and since I'm not sending video to the receiver, couldn't I just send a pair of RCA's (R/Blk) from the DVR to the Receiver? That would leave me with HDMI from the DVR to the TV (digital picture and sound) and then when using surround I would still have the digital picture from the DVR to the TV with analog sound.

No matter what, I'll have HDMI from the Blu-ray to the receiver and HDMI from the receiver to the tv. It's just the connection of the DVR that's got me confused.

Why not at least use the digital output from the DVR? That way you would at least get the higher quality surround signal. This will be a huge improvement when using the receiver.

I would be interested to know if you could see much difference in picture quality between the HDMI and component cables with the DVR.

 

[alaskaty]

oops, I must have edited it when you were replying. The DVR has optical output that I'm thinking of running to my receiver to get digital sound (in surround mode)

 

[manofsteel2397]

i have at&t u-verse and i can see a huge difference in hdmi vs component the problem with me using hdmi is i cant get the black levels calibrated right its know as the black crush amound u-verse forums...so im stuck using component cables in which the picture is slightly less......

 

[manofsteel2397]

Thanks for the input! I was thinking last night, and since I'm not sending video to the receiver, couldn't I just send an optical cable from my DVR to my receiver. That way I'd have digital video from the DVR to the TV no matter if I were using the tv's speakers or my surround speakers and digital audio via the HDMI in normal and optical in surround. Does this make sense or am I full of bologna?

No matter what, I'll have HDMI from the Blu-ray to the receiver and HDMI from the receiver to the tv. It's just the connection of the DVR that's got me confused.

question do you suffer from the 5.1 audio drops that most u-verse customers suffer from just curious.