I am about to purchase a new home theater system. I want to hook my
audio signal from both my HDTV tuner and DVD player into my receiver
to get Dolby 5.1 sound. Do I also need to route my video through the
receiver, or can I route the video directly to the TV monitor. Is
there an advantage to sending the video signal through the receiver,
or not??

Not sure if this is the appropriate forum for this question; if not,
please advise a better group.

Many thanks.

(Rich) writes:

I am about to purchase a new home theater system. I want to hook my
audio signal from both my HDTV tuner and DVD player into my receiver
to get Dolby 5.1 sound. Do I also need to route my video through the
receiver, or can I route the video directly to the TV monitor. Is
there an advantage to sending the video signal through the receiver,
or not??

It's a function of whether your TV can handle the multiple video
inputs in the flavor you choose to use (RGB component, composite, or
S-Video), and how many buttons you want to push when switching from
DVD to HDTV. If you have a programmable remote that can make the
switch in one button press then it's a moot issue, and I'd lean
towards cutting out the middle man and bringing the highest quality
video interconnect straight to your TV monitor.

About the only other advantage I could imagine in using the receiver
as a video switcher is if you plan to do any VCR recording from one or
both sources, and if your receiver provides a Video out to feed the
VCR (a la a tape monitor loop). In that case, you wouldn't have to
play cable jockey to do recording to the VCR-just press the
appropriate source button, and voila--audio and video routed to the
VCR as desired, and to the speakers and video monitor.

It all get complex since there are so many ways to get audio and video
from point A to B these days.

Best Regards,
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | Todd H
\ / | http://www.toddh.net/
X Promoting good netiquette | http://triplethreatband.com/
/ \ http://www.toddh.net/netiquette/ | "4 lines suffice."

(Rich) writes:

I am about to purchase a new home theater system. I want to hook my
audio signal from both my HDTV tuner and DVD player into my receiver
to get Dolby 5.1 sound. Do I also need to route my video through the
receiver, or can I route the video directly to the TV monitor. Is
there an advantage to sending the video signal through the receiver,
or not??

It's a function of whether your TV can handle the multiple video
inputs in the flavor you choose to use (RGB component, composite, or
S-Video), and how many buttons you want to push when switching from
DVD to HDTV. If you have a programmable remote that can make the
switch in one button press then it's a moot issue, and I'd lean
towards cutting out the middle man and bringing the highest quality
video interconnect straight to your TV monitor.

About the only other advantage I could imagine in using the receiver
as a video switcher is if you plan to do any VCR recording from one or
both sources, and if your receiver provides a Video out to feed the
VCR (a la a tape monitor loop). In that case, you wouldn't have to
play cable jockey to do recording to the VCR-just press the
appropriate source button, and voila--audio and video routed to the
VCR as desired, and to the speakers and video monitor.

It all get complex since there are so many ways to get audio and video
from point A to B these days.

Best Regards,
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | Todd H
\ / | http://www.toddh.net/
X Promoting good netiquette | http://triplethreatband.com/
/ \ http://www.toddh.net/netiquette/ | "4 lines suffice."

"Rich" wrote ...
I am about to purchase a new home theater system. I want to hook my
audio signal from both my HDTV tuner and DVD player into my receiver
to get Dolby 5.1 sound. Do I also need to route my video through the
receiver, or can I route the video directly to the TV monitor. Is
there an advantage to sending the video signal through the receiver,
or not??

Convienence of switching video and audio together would
appear to be a big advantage, unless you already have that
resolved elsewhere in your system.

Not sure if this is the appropriate forum for this question; if not,
please advise a better group.

There appear to be several alt.home-theatre.* newsgroups
I'd bet they are more on-topic.

"Rich" wrote ...
I am about to purchase a new home theater system. I want to hook my
audio signal from both my HDTV tuner and DVD player into my receiver
to get Dolby 5.1 sound. Do I also need to route my video through the
receiver, or can I route the video directly to the TV monitor. Is
there an advantage to sending the video signal through the receiver,
or not??

Convienence of switching video and audio together would
appear to be a big advantage, unless you already have that
resolved elsewhere in your system.

Not sure if this is the appropriate forum for this question; if not,
please advise a better group.

There appear to be several alt.home-theatre.* newsgroups
I'd bet they are more on-topic.