Ok Guys, here's another interesting one. I decided to make this its own post, although it is related to relocating my system.
For the new readers who aren't aware of my situation - I am in the process of relocating my Rotel Receiver and Rotel Amp and some other HT equipment from my Family Room to my basement. The Plasma will remain mounted in the Family Room and all of the HT equipment will be accessed using IR Repeating equipment.
Ok - here's the new issue.. One of the pieces of equipment I want to move is my Rotel RSX-1056 Receiver. Before I make any of this a reality, I have been thinking if there are any reasons that I need to have this piece of equipment in my direct line of site (in other words, stay in the Family Room) and could not come up with any until just now.
I am very accustomed to viewing the volume number directly on the display of my 1056 when I play the DVD; CD or TV. I also need to ensure that I have the ability to make menu/setting adjustments using the Rotel "On Screen Display". I think some of this will be impossible since the receiver will obviously be located in the basement. Whats strange though is that in the current configuration, when I play my DVD only, the volume adjustments and other settings are displayed directly on my Plasma. However, when I watch the Plasma directly for TV only, no settings (including volume) are displayed. I called Rotel about this and they said that the reason that the setting are displayed when playing the DVD is that the installer wired it through the Rotel first, but did not do the same for the TV. But now, since my new relocated installation will be straight HDMI for both the TV and the DVD, I am being told that I will have lost all ability to see the menus / volume adjustments on the Plasma screen. I can't live with that. One recommendation given to me was to have the installer add a "Composite Video" wire that goes from the Rotel to the Plasma so that I will be able to access on-screen menus. But as far as volume / tone adjustments, he said there was no way to do this other than possibly programming my PIP settings to make this work.
i know my questions are getting more and more complicated, but if anyone has any additional ideas here, please post them. As always - Thanks to all.