Never owned a receiver before, looking to, but i have one question.

T

TroyX

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jan 17, 2012
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My Verizon Fios cable box has HDMI out and i need to know if can you can plug it into the receiver and get picture and sound to the tv at the same time?

if so, does it enhance picture and sound?
 
If you buy a receiver, you also need speakers, ideally at least a 5.1 set, with center speaker, fronts (2), rears or sides (2) and a sub-woofer. If you intend to use TV speakers, don't spend money on a receiver. IMO.

Receivers are referred to as "AV Receviers" meaning they receiver both audio and video from your various "sources - cable box, satellite box, blu-ray player, media stream, htpc, etc." and route them to your display (big-screen TV, projector and speakers). It is like a switch that gets your video from various sources to the right place. Newer receivers can "up-scale" all your source signals to 1080p, too, which can give you improves on material in "standard def" like some TV and DVD material. Many consider this worthwhile. Also, you an have audio converted into "all-channel" so that sound comes from all speakers, giving a "fuller" sound experience. You have to decide if you like all that or not, but receivers do a variety of functions. Those that have dlna functions built in let you play media store on your home network, too.

IMO, an av receiver is a require piece of gear if you want to have a "home theater".
 
thanks all, and yes i will be getting speakers too.

just wanted to know if tv cable would work too when connected to it.
 
TroyX said:
thanks all, and yes i will be getting speakers too.

just wanted to know if tv cable would work too when connected to it.
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If there is an HDMI port and IF it is enabled. Most are, I think.
 
With most receivers the sound and video will not pass through to the tv with the receiver off. Just be aware that you will need to turn the receiver on to watch tv.
You could run component video and analog sound direct to the tv, and just switch inputs on the tv if you just want tv speakers for news, etc, and use the receiver for movies and tv shows.
 
My Yamaha RX-V867 has HDMI standby pass-through that will allow the TV to function with the receiver powered down.
 
JohnDC said:
With most receivers the sound and video will not pass through to the tv with the receiver off.
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I see people say this all the time. Why would you want to do this? I use my receiver 100% of the time when I use my TV.
 
TroyX said:
My Verizon Fios cable box has HDMI out and i need to know if can you can plug it into the receiver and get picture and sound to the tv at the same time?
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This is the entire marketing plan for HDMI.

TroyX said:
if so, does it enhance picture and sound?
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It shouldn't change the picture for High Def HDMI connections. If it does change the picture then that's normally a bad thing.

Should definitely help the sound quality. I recommend AVS forums as the place to go for learning about home theatre.
 
Bugalaman said:
why not? you cannot have a home theater without one. :p
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You can definitely have a home theater without an AV receiver. Most audiophiles and people really interested in sound quality stay away from AV receivers and get separate amps for each speaker. Because typically AV receivers are crammed with lots of features, but not much attention is payed to quality of the amps compared to dedicated amps.
 
mls1995 said:
I see people say this all the time. Why would you want to do this? I use my receiver 100% of the time when I use my TV.
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I fully agree with you, but many people really just want the TV speakers for the sound on TV programs.
I actually have a Pioneer KRP-500M monitor, so I dont even have speakers (or tuner). ;)
 
SirMaster said:
You can definitely have a home theater without an AV receiver. Most audiophiles and people really interested in sound quality stay away from AV receivers and get separate amps for each speaker. Because typically AV receivers are crammed with lots of features, but not much attention is payed to quality of the amps compared to dedicated amps.
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That is more of a "We do it because we can." Kind of thing. A chip amp is an easy thing to build for people with electronics experience. Building 6 of them isn't much harder. The quality improvement over a decent receiver like an Onkyo or a Harmon Kardon is very minor. I wouldn't expect anyone (normal) to be able to tell the difference in a blind test. Really, the hardest part about rolling your own is buying the transformer. The transformer is the most important part since it actually provides the power to the amps in the receiver. This is also the place where most commercial units come up short. A good toroidal transformer capable of 500w RMS is very expensive. You don't have to buy a toroid, but then what is the point of building your own then. They are generally accepted to be much less noisy than heavy iron.

It's pretty hard to get that 500 watts of power out of a transformer that can only provide 200 watts before it saturates. After that, it just gets hotter and doesn't provide any more real power.

If you really like hobby electronics, then sure, shoot for the moon. It most likely won't be cheaper than buying one and the quality differences are negligible (to MOST people.);)
 
TroyX said:
My Verizon Fios cable box has HDMI out and i need to know if can you can plug it into the receiver and get picture and sound to the tv at the same time?

if so, does it enhance picture and sound?
Click to expand...

A decent receiver will be able to handle practically any audio or video signal you send it. It will appear to enhance your picture and sound. But really, it's just degrading it less than everything else will.

The goal of a home theater is to reproduce content exactly how the author created it. The more clarity and accuracy of your sound and picture and the closer you will be to achieving this. As you can imagine, higher quality receivers and speakers will give you better clarity.

Don't skimp on audio. If you have a $1000 HDTV a $1000 sound system to match it would be quite nice.
 
yeah when you hook up the hdmi to your receiver it will pass the video on to your tv and then play the sound over the system.

sound will be definitely enhanced if its coming from some decent hifi speakers instead of tv speakers
 
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