I am getting my 50A10 this afternoon. I have Directv and was wondering the best way to hook things up. I bought the new TIVO HD box, a new dish, an outside antenna to hook on the dish and a new Denon 1920 DVD Player. Merry Christmas to me! I now have no money to buy the wife and kids stuff, but what the heck, they can just watch my new stuff.
The TV has only one HDMI input and I don't know whether to put the DVD or the TIVO box there. I have a Pioneer Elite 52TX receiver, and I always watch DVD's with sound coming through it. I watch TV both ways, coming direct from the box most of the time and through the receiver for sports and movies.
I guess my biggest question is whether to run the HDMI frim the TIVO or the DVD Player?
Jim, I just set up my 50A10 on Friday. I don't have Direct TV but I have a HiDef Cable box with DVI and component video outputs. It would have been nice if Sony had provided at least one more HDMI input but they didn't so here is how I went.
INPUT 1- Is hooked to my receiver's S-Video Out. INPUT 2- Not Used INPUT 3- Not Used INPUT 4- Not Used INPUT 5- Cable box via component video and R/L audio. INPUT 6- Sony DVD player via HDMI (I have the coax digital audio from the DVD hooked directly to my receiver) INPUT 7-Not Used
The results... DVD The DVD picture is great! I previously had a Samsung DVD player with DVI out hooked up to a Hitachi 50V500 TV. The picture using the DVI connection was less than impressive. I moved to component video and got a much better picture but still not as good as I have now.
Cable Box The cable box picture looks pretty much the same as I had with the 50V500 connected to the DVI out.
When I got the Hitachi, I spent months switching cable connections and playing with the picture settings before I was completely satisfied with the set up. In the end, it has a lot to do with personal preference.
My son and I just hooked it up Sunday. I can't believe how good the OTA picture is. I put the OTA antenna on the satelite dish so it runs through the same wire as the sat signal and splits at the TIVO box.
I have the HDMI coming from the TIVO box not from the DVD. I have the Denon DVD hooked up via component to the TV and digital to the receiver for audio. I need to buy another optic cable to run to the receiver. I really have not had a chance to watch a DVD yet so I have no comment on that right now.
The TV is getting a very good picture on SD and great on HD. Having trouble figuring out some of the settings though. I don't like looking at anything stretched and sometimes it still does that. Some of the stretches are barely noticable though.