I have a panasonic HD tv HD cable box an x box 360.And today got a blu ray player the thing is i only have two HDMI sockets in the back of my tv.And i need three what is the best thing i can do. Thank you for any help john
Do you have a stereo receiver hooked up to the TV? If so, run everything through the receiver with 1 HDMI to the TV and use the receiver to select the input going to the TV.
If not, I belive that you can get a HDMI splitter but you would have to make sure that only one of the sources is on if you choose that input. Hope that helps
Thank you for your advice no i have not got a receiver. So thats what i need i looked at them and they are quite expensive. I will look into it thank you john
If there is such a thing as an HDMI splitter - don't use it. If you only have 2 HDMI ports then prioritize on which 2 components deserve the best connection and downgrade the 3rd, 4rth, 5th etc to lower grade connections. I would be hooking the Blu ray player with the HDMI cable. The next step down would be "component" hookups (red/green/blue) - but then you will need to a run separate cable for audio as "component" (red/green/blue) is only video. (HDMI includes video and sound). The best hookups for audio (sound) is an optical cable followed by coax.
The old style red/white/yellow (red/white is audio and yellow is video) should only be used as a last resort as this carries the poorest signal.
You can use a HDMI switch. They usually come in a 2-4 port config and will handle 1080P no problem. Most come with a small remote to select which device output you want and some higher end ones will automatically detect whatever component you have powered up.
Just hook up your HD cable box with a good set of component cables and you won't even notice the difference in the picture quality. The Hd boxes only put out at very best 1080i/720P which can easily be handled by component cables. The only tim you will notice the difference is with full 1080P and the HDMI cables make a very noticible difference then.
Go to Best Buy, get an Xbox 360 / pc monitor cable to hook the xbox directly to your tv. Without a sterio reciever (home theatre system) you will also need an optical (didital audio) cable to run to the tv as well. This configuration saves your HDMI slots for other compnents. The newer recievers have multiple HDMI ports to run all your components, when you do buy one, look at the back of the unit to make sure it has all the stuff you need, and remember that rca cables inline generally knock your system back to analog, so everything must be digital. DONT FORGET A GOOD POWER BAR / SURGE PROTECTOR - DO NOT CHEAP OUT ON THESE! My question is this: If your dropping the coin on blue ray, what is the point of this if your not running a reciever with surround sound? If you just wanted a player, I would have went with a Play Station 3 instead. Kill 2 tree huggers with one pitchfork - Get a blue ray player and rent the odd PS3 game if the title isnt offered on xbox.