I have a Hitachi 50V500 rear projection LDC TV, a Pioneer VSX-1014 receiver, and a Velodyne Deco 5.1 channel speaker system. In terms of connecting my Time Warner Scientific Atlantic 8300 HD DVR and DVD player to my system, I can either: (1) run the video feed from the DVR and DVD player directly into my TV using component video cables while sending the audio to my receiver using digital optical cables (this is my current set-up); or (2) run both the video and audio feeds into my receiver first, sending the video feed onward from my receiver back to my TV.
My question is this: is there any benefit to one option over another? I can't really see any reason to route the video signal through the receiver. Am I missing something?
As stated, the absolute best you will get is direct video. However, depending on the quality of your cables and components, any signal degradation may be un-noticable. The benefits of running through the receiver is not having to switch the TV input.
(Even if you can up-convert, the quality does not get any better than what it was at the source. All up-sampling does is let it go over what may have been an incompatable method. (I.E. S-video output up-converted by the reciever to component. You only have to have component cables running to your monitor (TV) but the quality of the signal is at best still s-video.)
I agree that the best method, is the direct one. I have my HD signal running via DVI directly to the tv.
Like Chris said, I run my DVD video through my receiver, but only for convenience reasons. I tend to fiddle with my audio settings, so I ran it that way to access my receiver menus easily while a DVD was playing.