Dear Big Picture Big Sound:
I just bought a Samsung TU 700 50-inch tv that I want to connect a Verizon set top box, a Denon AVR s730h receiver, and a Sony ubp-ux80 blu ray player to. What is the best way to connect everything to the new TV?
Thank you for you help and advice,
-Rhajney S.
Hi, Rhajney,
There are many ways you can connect your gear, but the method I'd recommend is to connect your two audio/video sources (cable box and Blu-ray player) to the Denon receiver via HDMI cables, then connect the receiver's HDMI/ARC output to the TV's HDMI 2 (eARC) input also via an HDMI cable. This will ensure that you get the best sound and picture quality from all of your sources.
The HDMI/ARC connection between your receiver and TV will carry the picture from the Blu-ray Player and cable box to the TV. It will also allow you to get audio from the TV's built-in streaming apps back to the Denon receiver so it comes through your surround sound speaker system.
Both your TV and your receiver support 4K sources and support the ARC (Audio Return Channel) feature so you won't need any additional audio or video cables connected between the TV and receiver. You do need to make sure you enable the ARC Audio feature on your Denon receiver however. To do this, Set "HDMI Control" to "On" in the receiver's set-up menu. You may need to enable ARC on the TV too, so check the TV set-up menu for that if you can't hear any sound while using the TV's streaming apps.
The only possible complication I can see is that your TV supports the newer eARC (enhanced Audio Return Channel) function while the receiver only supports the basic ARC function. You should still be able to get sound from the TV apps through your receiver, but you will not be able to get the highest quality uncompressed multi-channel surround sound options from those apps. If you want to get uncompressed 5.1 and 7.1 channel surround sound from the streaming apps on your TV, you will need to upgrade to a newer receiver which supports eARC, like the Denon AVR-S750H.
Hope that helps and good luck!
