Question about setting up home theater system? HDMI output?

Question

Any home theater person know about this? I am setting up a home theater system for the 1st time - I have a Denon 1908 receiver and 3-4 items to hook it up to: a PS3, DVD, DirecTV and a hard drive box. It has a HDMI in and HDMI out slot - Can I plug all the above items into the receiver and have the one HDMI cable going to the TV or do I need to also connect each item to the TV slots( ie into the back of the TV). Ill probably have the PS3 HDMI going to the in slot. Hope my questions makes sense.

Answer 1

From what I can see it looks as if you have two inputs and one output (* from what I'veave read on Denon website) for two sources. It looks as if you can switch between two HDMI sources with the output (labelled monitor) going to your TV.

The manual should tell you the right button to press to switch between them.

However if this is not possible for some reason it is possible to purchase an HDMI switch box.  This may be useful as you have four HDMI items to plug in.

Hope this is of some help!

Matt.

Answer 2

You will want to use HDMI from the PS3 to the receiver definitely. This will allow you to pass the lossless audio onto the receiver to output to your speakers. You can't do that with the optical connection.

Ideally you would do the same with all other HDMI connections but as you only have two on the 1908 you'll have to be selective. The 1908 will not pass the audio/video from sources that are plugged into it that are not HDMI over it's HDMI connection to your TV. You would need to either connect a component video cable from the receiver to the TV or plug them straight into the TV. To get sound from those sources to come out of your receiver you would need to connect them with optical or coaxial.

I would assume the hard drive box would connect to the PS3 via USB or to your computer network somehow. I don't think it would have the connections necessary to connect to your Denon receiver.

BTW: you could probably ditch the DVD player now that you have a PS3 as it does a nice job of upconverting DVD to HD quality.

Answer 3

Model numbers??

You need to provide model numbers to get the best hook up diagram for your components. Just know that the 1908 doesn't convert analog video to HDMI.

Answer 4

I too have a Denon receiver. Can't remember the model number for the life of me, but meh. Not a very user friendly receiver, lemme tell ya.

Anyways, to answer your question, one of your HDMI slots in your receiver will be an HDMI OUT. Connect one HDMI cable end into this port, and the other end into your TV. All your peripheral units (DirecTV, PS3, DVD) will all work through that one input.

Incidentally, why bother with a DVD player? You have a PS3.