[Recoil101]

Folks,
Had a good browse of posts and the sticky in the V+ forum which was most helpful. So I've come up with a proposed system design for my new equipment. Would really appreciate hints/criticism.

The units involved are :
Television - Sony KDL-46Z4500
Cable - V+ TVDrive box
Home Cinema & Blu ray - SONY BDV-E300
HDD Recorder - Sony RDR HX725
Console - XBox 360 Elite

The HDD recorder is used as an overflow from the V+ system. I tend to record things where the video/audio is not that important (eg soap operas, old sitcoms) on the HDD and leave space on the V+ box for action movies, concerts etc.

The connections I'm proposing are :

TVDrive --> TV
HDMI Cable (For HD Video)
RF Coaxial Antenna (For TV internal Digital Tuner)

TVDrive --> Home Cinema & Blu Ray
Coaxial Audio (For Digital sound)

TVDrive --> HDD Recorder
Scart (For Audio & Video)

Home Cinema & Blu Ray --> TV
HDMI Cable (For HD Video)
Optical Audio (For audio when using TVs internal digital tuner)

HDD Recorder --> TV
Scart (For Audio & Video)

XBox 360 Elite --> TV
HDMI (For HD Video)

XBox 360 Elite --> Home Cinema & Blu Ray
Optical Audio (For Digital sound)


I don't think I've missed any.... Any criticisms would be greatly appreciated! Like all of you, I feel that having spent good money on this equipment I want to get the best out of it, so please let me know what you think.

Many, many thanks
Pete

EDIT : Been thinking about the optical input socket on the Home Cinema & Blu Ray unit. There's only one so I'd have to disconnect and connect each time I want to use the XBox. That's not a major issue, but I was wondering about connecting the xbox up via the 2x Audio Jacks instead. That way they could stay plugged in to the back. Would the audio be not as quality/not surround using them instead???

[davepuma]

1. I'm not familiar with the cable box but why would you have the RF cable going from the cable box to the TV? I would have thought it should be routed to the DVD Recorder and then from the DVD Recorder's RF out to the TV. I didn't think that the cable box needed RF input.

2. As V+ has twin tuners, do you use the Freeview much? If not, do you need surround sound from the TV's Freeview tuner? Does the TV have analogue audio output (red/white RCA phono)? As Freeview only outputs stereo, I would not use the TV's optical output. I would leave it for the Xbox 360 which will is capable of Dolby Digital 5.1. However, does your TV pass digital audio from HDMI sources over optical? Check the manual. If it does, it should pass Dolby Digital from the Xbox 360 via HDMI - optical. If it doesn't connect the Xbox 360's optical output to the Sony system for DD5.1 from games. There is a sticky post on Xbox 360 HDMI/Optical. Check it for details. If you use the analogue audio out from the Xbox 360, you will only get a pseudo surround sound effect like dolby pro logic ii, which is not true discrete multi-channel surround sound. It doesn't even come close.

[Recoil101]

Thanks a lot for that, just the sort of thing I'm after!

Quite right on the RF Antenna. I'll feed it directly into the HDD then loop to the TV.

On point 2, it took me a few reads to completely follow! Again, you're spot on regarding the freeview sound output. I would only be having it tuned as an emergency fallback on the rare occasion that the cable is down, so no real need for optical sound connection.

Your point on the xbox is interesting. I've looked through the manuals and it does indeed look as if by connecting it to the tv with HDMI & optical audio, it 'should' feed back audio down to the home cinema unit without connecting the xbox to it directly by using the Sony 'Bravia' integrated errrr thingymebob.

Many thanks!