After doing more online and actual leg work based research I am now convince that a new HDMI and tos link receiver is the simplest and definitely worth avoiding adapters and break out boxes. Even the bigger pricier version around $700.00 aren't unreasonable given they have the new 7.2 compatibility and even if I don't add the extra speaker, including some sort of High Front speaker (high = height not treble) and the double sub woofer the matrix options are hard to beat.
The thing that stood out is there would be no need to daisy chain HDMI and TOS link break out boxes and these units will input standard def equipment and upconvert it to 1080i to feed the plasma over HDMI. They also route the sd signals to a typical yellow RCA and sudio RCA pair so I can feed the plasma's composite in and let the set do the scaling. I'm interested to see which will do a better job. The bottom line is that the AV receiver isn't just about audio routing it's doing SD to HD upconvert and they offer between 5 to 8 HDMI inputs and 6 or so standard def inputs as well as optical and coaxial audio inputs. They also have ethernet and some have wifi capability that facilitate among other things tablet and smart phone apps that will control them and all devices connected to them which I assume means the TV and certain peripheral players all from one app. In a few short days I've realized how out of touch I've been with the end user options these days.
From my research it seems if I didn't want to upgrade the receiver I could get a toslink adapter to rca audio outputs for discrete channel or just stereo jacks that I believe would carry prologic compatible matrixing because I read all the 5.1 decoders include a downmix option that will take the 5.1 mix and down mix it to prologic, stereo and mono. Don't know exactly why so many options but man there are a lot of ways to go and possibly screw things up. I'm starting to think ama and codec changes are easier than the consumer market.
--- In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, "blafarm" <blafarm@...> wrote:
>
> Manufacturers tend to implement ARC differently. The behavior of that HDMI port on your monitor might be defined in a setup screen -- or it may be automatically "sensed" based on what is connected to it. For more information, you might want to read this:
>
> http://hdguru.com/what-is-hdmi-arc-and-what-does-it-do-for-your-hdtv/
>
> It is true that TOSLINK does not support the bandwidth required for lossless versions of Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.
>
> Depending on your setup, you might want to consider purchasing an inexpensive HDMI-compatible AV Receiver (Denon is a good place to start your research) that will act as your HDMI switch, that will support lossless surround formats -- and that might provide some level of automated calibration (although manual calibration is typically superior).
>
> Depending on the actual source of your OTA programming (monitor or external box), you might still need to grapple with that OTA audio -- but, depending on your monitor's ARC implementation (see article linked above) and your AV Receiver's capabilities, that issue might be addressable using ARC from your monitor back to the AV Receiver.
>
>
>
>
> --- In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, John Moore <bigfish@> wrote:
> >
> > So my soon to be installed Panny Plasma has no conventional audio or video outputs. One component/composite input and 3 HDMI inputs, the HDMI 2 is (arc) capable and there is an optical Toslink connection. My current audio receiver is pre HDMI and doesn't have an optical input. I see that I can get a digital to analogue break out box that would give me discrete rca jacks for 5.1 sound. My receiver has a 6 rca discrete input so that could work. I haven't started looking for a similar unit that would take the HDMI arc (audio return channel) and do the same thing. I will be feeding the set with Direct TV box on one of the HDMI inputs and I could feed the Sat box audio to the audio receiver but if I go for over the air the audio has to get back from the TV. This is my first time looking into HDMI arc. If input HDMI 2 is the arc channel can it only be used for the audio return or can it still be used as an input? I don't see how that would be
> > possible given the HDMI from the arc TV connection would have to directly to an audio break our box or an arc HDMI compatible audio unit.
> >
> >
> > I also read that the optical tos link can only do compressed 5.1 whereas the arc path is uncompressed. I'm not an audiophile but I do play one on TV sometimes is this a concern? And yes I know my new plasma is already out of date with no 4K option, how will I sleep at night. ;-)
> >
> >
> > John Moore
> > Barking Trout Productions
> > Studio City, CA
> > bigfish@
> >
>
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