Cabling help

[spikey_richie 233]

Hi gang,

So on Saturday morning, I had the standard config:

Sky+HD box connected directly to the TV via HDMI

Blu-Ray player connected to the TV via HDMI

Sound outputs from both routed to my wife's 10 year old Sony 5.1 amp

Saturday afternoon we went over to Richer sounds and bought:

http://www.richersounds.com/product/av-receivers/sony/strdn1000/sony-strdn1000

http://www.richersounds.com/product/speaker-packages/onkyo/sksht528/onky-sksht528-blk

So i cabled it up, putting the HDMI out from the Blu-Ray and Sky+ HD boxes into the back of the receiver, then plumbed the HDMI out from the receiver into the TV. Sorted.

But; now I have to have the receiver on to watch TV or a movie. How do I set it up so I can watch TV from the Sky+ in HD without having to switch the receiver on?

[QuantumTrickery 2]

Some of the better receivers have a standby pass through HDMI feature that allows video/sound to go through even when the receiver is off. If your receiver didn't have that, you are out of luck. Out of curiosity, why go with a Sony receiver when at a similar price range you can go with far superior sounding products from Pioneer, Onkyo or Yamaha?

[spikey_richie 233]

I was looking at the Onkyo, but the majority of receivers are ugly. I went for form over function in some regards, but it matches the piano finish look of the blu-ray player and the speakers. I'll do some research on the pass-through; thanks.

[jerzdawg 338]

While I am not familiar with the Sky boxes, can you have multiple audio/video outputs? I know on my US based Motorola cable box I have HDMI out to my receiver for both audio and video, but I can also have an optical cable/component running from my cable box directly to my TV (for when I did not want to use my receiver).