Connectivity: The ins and outs of building a great system

Another important consideration when selecting a receiver is the variety and number of inputs and outputs it offers. Make sure you get a model with enough inputs to handle all your audio and video components, preferably with some room to expand your system down the road. Many home theater receivers offer only two or three audio-only inputs, but considerably more audio/video inputs. If this division seems a little lopsided for the components in your system, bear in mind that any audio/video input can easily be used for an audio-only source.

Digital audio outputs — great for recording
All home theater receivers feature digital audio inputs, but a good number of them do not offer any digital audio outputs. If you've got a digital recording device — especially a component-style CD burner — you'll likely want to get a receiver with a digital output that is compatible with the digital input on your recorder. This allows a direct digital connection between your source component and your recorder for maximum fidelity recordings. Otherwise, the audio signal will go through several stages of digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital conversion that will reduce the sound quality.

Keeping a turntable in your system?
If you plan to have a turntable in your system, you'll probably want to get a receiver with a phono input. Many home theater receivers, and even some stereo receivers, do not offer a phono input. You can still hook up a turntable to a receiver without a phono input, but you'll need to add a separate phono preamp, or a turntable with a built-in preamp.

Advanced receivers like this one offer an amazing array of inputs and outputs. This lets you hook up all the components you've got now, and also gives you room for system expansion later.

Switching between video components
Video components come in all shapes and sizes, and offer a variety of connection options. Some video connections provide greater accuracy and more detail than others. When you're hooking up a video component, try to use the best connection possible to get the best picture quality for your system. For a look at the most common types of video connections, check out our article on audio/video interconnects.

Receivers with HDMI switching let you connect two or more components via HDMI — a great option if your TV doesn't have enough HDMI inputs. For even more convenience, check out receivers with HDMI conversion or upconversion, discussed below.

Why would you connect your video sources to a home theater receiver? Well, these days, most home systems include plenty of video components, including cable or satellite TV tuners, DVD players and recorders, high-def video disc players, game consoles and more. Some folks find that their TV just doesn't have enough video inputs, or enough of a certain type of input, to accommodate all their gear. That's when using a receiver's video switching capability can be really handy.

Once your sources are connected to a home theater receiver, you can choose the one you want to watch, and send the selected video signal out to your TV for viewing. This is especially important when it comes to HDMI-equipped components. That's because many HDMI components will only pass their top resolution video signal via HDMI. So it would be to your advantage to just make an HDMI connection through your receiver and use its HDMI switching capabilities to select your sources.

However, there are some issues to keep in mind when choosing the video connections you'll use. Unless your receiver offers video conversion (see below), you'll have to make a matching connection to your TV for every type of video connection you make to your receiver.

For example, if your DVD player is connected to your receiver via composite video, your receiver will have to send the DVD signal to your TV via another composite cable. Similarly, signals sent to your receiver's component video inputs will only be sent out through its component video outputs.

So, if you've got several different video sources and you want to get the best possible video quality from each, you'll very likely have to make two or more video connections between your receiver and your TV. If you'd like to streamline your setup while maintaining top picture quality, and save a little extra money on cables, read on.

Video conversion — better quality in a single connection
Receivers with video conversion offer a lot more switching flexibility and convenience. What is video conversion exactly? It's a receiver's ability to accept a variety of incoming video connections from the components in your system and pass them all to your TV through a different type of video connection. The most common types of video conversion are:

• Composite-to-S-video conversion. This lets you send a variety of A/V sources to your TV through a single S-video connection. It works with any video signal entering your receiver via a composite video or S-video input.
• Component video conversion. This type of video conversion is more flexible still, letting you send signals from composite, S-video, and component video inputs to your TV via a single component video connection.
• HDMI video conversion. This versatile form of video conversion allows you to send the video signals from all your composite, S-video, component video, and HDMI inputs to your TV using a single HDMI cable.

Video conversion does not improve the video quality of any of your sources, but it does maintain the best possible quality for each. A lot of folks like video conversion because it means you don't ever have to change your TV's input settings when you switch among video sources on your receiver. That's particularly handy if you or someone in your household isn't comfortable with making changes in your system's settings.

Video upconversion — help your non-HD sources look better
Along with basic video conversion, some receivers offer video upconversion, or "scaling." Video upconversion means your receiver can process and upgrade any non-HD video source to a higher-resolution video signal that more closely matches the capabilities of your HDTV. This gives your DVDs and older video sources a crisper, more detailed look. However, there are limits — don't expect your VHS tapes to look high-def. Watch our short video on HDMI conversion and upconversion to see how you can make the most of this advanced technology.