Connection advice after upgrading to plasma TV

[DavidCook]

Hi,
Advice required please.
I've recently moved into the world of plasma, blu ray and Sky HD.
The sky engineer told me to use the TV as the main hub for controlling things and connected the sky box to the TV via HDMI, The panny blu ray player to the TV via another HDMI, and then advised using an optical cable back from the Panasonic plasma TV to my Yamaha amp because the amp is an old RX-V 1500 which doesn't have any HDMI connections but does have optical.
Am I getting the best from what I have for surround sound etc.

 

[Andy98765]

As most TV's do not pass-through 5.1 you should connect the SKY box and Blu-ray via optical to the AV amp. Sky for example is only stereo from through the HDMI cable.

 

[DavidCook]

Thanks Andy for your quick response.
So to be clear in my head are you saying leave the hdmi cable from the sky box to TV in place, also leave the other hdmi cable from the blue ray to TV inplace BUT then connect an optical cable from the sky box directly to the amp and another optical cablefrom the blu ray directly to the amp.
I think I need the hdmi cables from both devices to the TV to get the video.

Thanks in advance

 

[Iain42]

Hi David,

Good advice from Andy, I would say that's exactly what he's saying.

You'll lose your 5.1 if you're passing it through the Panasonic tv (not that Sky has that via HDMI), so connect optical cables from the Sky box and blu-ray to your av receiver. Then set it up so it takes the audio from these and the video from your HDMI cables appropriately.

 

[DavidCook]

Fantastic chaps.
I have tried what you advise and all sounds good. As you can probably imagine behind the unit which houses the cables etc is like spaghetti junction and I didn't want to start pulling things apart before I knew what I was aiming for.

Very grateful thanks.

 

[logiciel]

Yes, it's both devices to TV by HDMI for video, and both devices to amplifier by optical for audio.
Turn off the TV's speakers.