Connecting AVR and cable box to TV

[Nautilus]

How to connect AVR to tv with direct tv cable box
I understand this is a newbie question but for some reason after moving i just can not get it right. I have a denon Avr 1910. The tv, cable box and avr all have a optical port. The cable box has one hdmi and of course the AVR has multiple hdmi ports... Inputs, output hdmi but no ARC-hdmi. Hoping for some patient person to tell me the pathway of the wires. Thank you!

[johnmeyer]

If you use HDMI, it carries audio as well as video and therefore you do not need to use the optical port. If all of your boxes (cable box, Denon receiver, TV) all have HDMI, it is as simple as these connections have ever been: just connect everything using HDMI cables.

[Nautilus]

I got it working with the cable box however no luck when streaming Netflix or Amazon , these apps only pass sound thru the tv speakers. Tried an optical.cable from the tv to the avr to no avail. Any thoughts?

[johnmeyer]

I've set up a lot of home theaters for various neighbors. The usual problem with audio on Netflix is that many people are now "tuning" Netflix using the app in their TV set. For watching cable, DVDs and Blu-Ray, they usually have the source (cable box or disc player) going through their audio receiver and from there to the TV. The audio goes along for the ride. However, when watching Netflix, the audio and video are in the TV set and therefore the audio has to go from the TV back to the audio receiver. You will have to make changes to the inputs on both the TV and the receiver while watching Netflix to accommodate this "backward" audio flow. To get the audio from the TV to the receiver, that audio optical cable may actually be useful after all. If your TV has optical audio output, you go from that to the optical input on your receiver.

BTW, if your theater system gets too complicated, I highly recommend this simple, yet very effective, unified remote control:

Logitech 615 Remote