cable setups ?

[MULLY @10]

does anyone know the best setups for cables l have just invested in a hitachi pd4400 from currys so want to hook up my other bits to it , l am using a YAMAHA HTR-5640RDS AMP
SKY+ BOX
XBOX
SAMSUNG HD DVD PLAYER
AND WILL EVENTUALLY WANT TO RUN MY PC THROUGH IT ?
also forgot to mention the plasma is HD ready,
thanks Nick

[plonky]

This could be tricky because it looks like you only have 2 video inputs, 1 coax digital in (CD) and 1 optical digital in (DVD) on the amp.

I haven't bothered with a plasma yet therefore I don't know what inputs are readily available on yours. I am a firm believer in trying to keep the video connections straight from the player/sky etc into the TV where possible. This point is actually reinforced by the fact you have only 2 video inputs on the amp anyway.

Need to know what priority you would place on the PQ and sound quality e.g Sky+ then DVD then XBOX or DVD then SKy+ then XBOX.
Would you be interested in using the digital out on Sky+ to get dolby digital on some movie channels?

[MULLY @10]

cheers plonky, my plasma has 3x scarts 1 x hdmi 1 x s-video and 1 x vga my priority will be DVD , XBOX , SKY+ cheers for your help , nick

[plonky]

Seeing as your plasma doesnt appear to have component in, I wouldn't bother feeding any video through the amp all. Video connection is quite easy then.

Presumably you can connect the DVD straight to the Plasma using HDMI.
Hopefully you have 2 RGB SCART inputs on the plasma so you can attach the Xbox and Sky+ to one each. By the way, I am assuming you have an AV cable kit for the Xbox (with RGB and digital out connectors).

As for Digital audio, you have a couple of options, which may depend on the digital out on the DVD player.
If its optical - you can connect it to the Optical DVD connector on the back of your amp. As the XBOX digital out is optical, you can then get a optical-coax converter so you can connect the XBOX to the CD digital coax on the amp.

It its coax - You can connect it to the CD digital coax on the back of the amp. You would then connect the XBOX optical out to DVD optical in. It may sound a little confusing having Xbox into DVD and the DVD player into CD but I think you may be able to rename the Input names on your amp (I have the RXV1500 and you can do this)

The Sky+ would simply have 2 red and white phono connections to the D-TV/CBL Audio in.

You would obviously then have to select the correct Vido input on the plasma and the correct Audio output on the Amp.

If it turned out you wanted Sky+ digital audio after all, you could change the XBOX audio connector to red and white phono (MD/VCR) and have the sky dig audio going to wherever the Xbox would have (bearing in mind the Sky+ box out is optical).

rHope that wasn't too confusing!!