Audio Systems: hdmi connections issues, tv hookup, hdmi cables

Question
I have four pieces of equipment: a cable box, a receiver, a TV, and a blu-ray, ALL of which can handle hdmi cabling. I am getting conflicting information from the different manuals, and from people in stores and who come to my house. TV instructions say to run the hdmi cable from the cable box directly to the TV; the receiver instructions say no; they say to run hdmi cable from the cable box to the receiver first, then run it out from the receiver via hdmi to the TV.

Basically I want to simply hook these things up and just use two stereo speakers playing the sound, with speaker wire running from the receiver to the two speakers. (That's the easy part: the speakers to the receiver.)

It's the first four I don't understand the scheme of hookup. I THOUGHT the correct way would be running both the cable box and the blu-ray into the RECEIVER using hdmi, and then running hdmi from receiver out to the TV. That keeps it to just three hdmi cables: 1) cable box to receiver; 2) blu-ray to receiver; 3) receiver to TV.

But the guys who hooked up the TV did it all differently, with the cable going straight into the TV, along with the blu-ray straight to the TV (bypassing the receiver), and then some old-fashioned reds/whites from back of tv down to the receiver, then telling me I needed to run an optical cable (which I don't have) from the TV down to the receiver. Isn't my "three hdmi cable" scheme above the way to go?? Thanks for any help you can provide; much appreciated! -- daveb

Answer
I get this question all the time at work.  To be honest  - there really isn't a "wrong" way, only the one that works best for you.

Your 3 cable scheme will work just fine. The only caveat may be if your receiver doesn't have an HDMI pass thru, you'll need to have the receiver on whenever you want to watch the TV. With that being said - some folks do exactly that, so it's a matter of personal preference.

The "tv hookup guys" method is fine as well. Their way gives you the option of watching the TV without having to turn the receiver on.

If you need an optical cable, check out www.tartancable.com or www.bluejeanscable.com

you will get ripped off if you pay retail prices for an optical cable (much like the retail pricing of HDMI cable).