Wiring Question

[b1ake]

I'm about to hook up a TV with 4 HDMI inputs with an XBOX, Blu-Ray Player, Cable Box, and a Home Theatre in a Box type system or Sound bar. My question is - can I wire everything (Xbox/bluray) through the TV and then run the sound to the home theatre by optical cable? What is the quality difference between optical and HDMI?

I really don't want to spend the $$ for a HT in a box with HDMI inputs (only going to use it a few years and toss it).

I realize it would probably be a better idea to just buy a reciever and run everything through it, but thats not really an option right now.

Thanks!

[Mustangman_2000]

I'm about to hook up a TV with 4 HDMI inputs with an XBOX, Blu-Ray Player, Cable Box, and a Home Theatre in a Box type system or Sound bar. My question is - can I wire everything (Xbox/bluray) through the TV and then run the sound to the home theatre by optical cable? What is the quality difference between optical and HDMI?

I really don't want to spend the $$ for a HT in a box with HDMI inputs (only going to use it a few years and toss it).

I realize it would probably be a better idea to just buy a reciever and run everything through it, but thats not really an option right now.

Thanks!

HDMI will carry your Bluray HiDef sounds formats such as Dolby TrueHD or DTS MA. Optical does not support HiDef sound formats. Optical will work great for passing Dolby Digital, DTS, and PCM.

If you plug in all your HDMI devices into the TV and then run optical out to the HT, you will just be passing the lossy core audio of your Bluray discs. Not really that big of a deal considering your HT probably doesn't have ability to decode HiDef sound anyway.

[JasonRR]

I use optical to carry the sound from my BlueRay to my cheap-ass Harmon Kardon receiver, and am quite happy with the sound quality.

So yeah, do as MustangMan said and just use the HDMI to carry the video signal (and to carry TV sound to your TV) and use optical cables to push the sound to your HT set-up.

- BigJason

[KOZMO]

If you run HDMI to the TV you will not be able to run the audio back out through F/O. The F/O on your television is meant to pass Dolby Digital sound from the ATSC tuner and not pass through. You will still need to run seperate audio cables to the surround sound/sound bar.