Bluray Player or Bluray Home Theater

[Sakuya]

My friend currently has a DVD home theater system Sony dav-hdx500. He's currently wanting to upgrade to Bluray and just bought a new Samsung HDTV (UN40EH6000). We totally forgot to check how his current receiver/DVD player combo ports look like. It has no HDMI in but 1 HDMI out (picture of the back attached).



Is it better for him to get a separate receiver and Bluray player or a new Bluray home theater system? The only other devices he's using is Wii and PS2. I think is possible to just connect Bluray player to that receiver's component + coaxial/optical. Is there any Bluray player with those connections nowadays?

[jman98]

Analog outputs like component are going to be disappearing from BluRay players very soon, if they haven't started already. They must start disappearing some time in 2013 but I think manufacturers are free to take them out sooner if they wish. If you can believe this, it's actually to stop "piracy". I think it's nuts, but we had some crazy guy just a few days ago who was talking about recording the component output of his BluRay player via a PC capture card rather than just ripping the disc, so I guess maybe Hollywood does have a few brain dead people to worry about in wanting to get rid of analog video. Component video switches between multiple input sources do exist and they're not too expensive (I found one for about $20) if he wants to go that route and connect multiple component video sources to this old receiver.

I'm not particularly fond of all in one home theater systems and I despise Sony, so I cannot in good conscience advise your friend to buy another home theater system. The one he's got is something like 5-6 years old and that was before HDMI inputs were becoming available on receivers.

If he just wants to get a receiver, if he'll sign up for daily emails at http://www.woot.com about every 3 months they keep putting a really good Denon receiver on sale for about $150 and it has 4 HDMI inputs. I bought one a few months ago and I'm really happy with it. You can't beat the price.

[Sakuya]

Thank you for your response!

[FulciLives]

You are making this harder than it need be ...

1.) Connect HDMI out of the Blu-Ray player to the HDMI input of the TV
2.) Connect the optical or coaxial digital output of the Blu-Ray player to the optical/coaxial input of the receiver.

He can always buy a new receiver at some point that has multiple HDMI inputs with an HDMI output if he wants to use the receiver to switch components but that isn't really necessary. The only problem I see with the current receiver is if he wants to have more than 1 device that uses digital audio. He has only one input of each type (one optical and one coaxial) and I bet that isn't two inputs but one shared input (since some devices have one or the other but rarely both).

So for now what I said above should work until he needs more digital audio / HDMI inputs. At that point he can buy a new receiver OR he may be able to buy an HDMI switcher with digital audio output (such a switcher accepts multiple HDMI inputs and then splits that into an HDMI video only feed and a separate digital audio only feed).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
Here is the type of switcher/splitter that I'm talking about:
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=101&cp_id=10110&cs_id=1011002&p_id=...seq=1&format=2

[Sakuya]

You are making this harder than it need be ...

1.) Connect HDMI out of the Blu-Ray player to the HDMI input of the TV
2.) Connect the optical or coaxial digital output of the Blu-Ray player to the optical/coaxial input of the receiver.

Thanks so much, I'll try that out! And I'll look into that switcher should my friend need it. Thanks again!

[fritzi93]

The only problem I see with the current receiver is if he wants to have more than 1 device that uses digital audio.

You could use a TOSLink switch:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA0PG08P9416

My Blu-Ray standalone is connected to the TV via HDMI, and with an optical cable to receiver (no HDMI on the receiver). Since I also use the optical out from TV to receiver when playing MKVs from external hard drive, the switch has been a good cheap solution.

My TV's optical out will *not* do DTS passthrough, and will downmix to PCM stereo. So the optical output from BD standalone is very necessary. OTOH, the TV's optical out will do AC3 passthrough, so therefore all my MKVs have AC3. Hence the switch.

BTW, yoda suggested that one to me.

[jman98]

You are making this harder than it need be ...

1.) Connect HDMI out of the Blu-Ray player to the HDMI input of the TV
2.) Connect the optical or coaxial digital output of the Blu-Ray player to the optical/coaxial input of the receiver.

I have seen BluRay players that cannot split audio out to coax if HDMI is used so while this MAY work fine, there is also some chance that this will not work at all.