Ok so I just brought my first flatscreen plasma TV yesterday ( Panasonic TH-42PZ770 ). I also have a Sony AV unit ( STR-DE885 ). The only two external pieces that I am running is my cable box and my PS3. With my old setup I ran the cable box to the AV unit with s-video and coax for the audio, and I ran the PS3 through the AV box and used a fiber optical cable from the ps3 to the av unit. Then I sent the video to the TV from the AV unit. With this setup I would get digital surround sound out of my AV unit (for anyone with a sony the little blue light would turn on) with my PS3 and I would get it with most of my cable stations.

With the flatscreen I ran this setup: The PS3 and the cablebox (which is high def now) are both connected to the tv with HDMI cables. Then I run a fiber optical cable from the tv to the AV unit. While this produces sound for both pieces the blue light no longer comes on with either external piece of equipment and I get "fake" surround sound. If I run separate audio lines for the ps3 and cable box I can get the digital surround sound working again. But I thought that the HDMI cable were suppose to handle both the video output and the digital sound output. Anyone know what I am doing wrong? Are my thoughts about HDMI wrong? Do I need a bigger HDMI cable (mine right now is like 4.95 gbps)? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks guys.

HDMI is not necessarily gonna be full surround.
Depending on some stuff I don't really recall, it may only be sending stereo/2 channel audio.

I think it's a function of the hardware you're using, not the cables though. For instance, my dish network DVR only supplied 2 channel audio over HDMI, but they either have a new software or hardware version that does full 5.1. I never paid much attention though, since I'm feeding digital audio via fiber.

It's most likely what 05_X said. What I would do, is use the other audio outputs of your devices (cable box and PS3) and run those into your receiver and switch your input there as well as your TV input when switching between devices. PITA, I know, but you can get some of the nicer universal remotes that will send the proper IR command to your TV and receiver when you want to switch between inputs. That also beats the heck out of getting an HDMI or other hi-def AV switcher.

Thanks guys. I have been using the other outputs (fiber on the PS3, coax on the cable) to send the signal directly to the AV unit and not using the HDMI for sound, like you said it's a PITA so I just wanted a one cable feed and be done with it. My thought process was that by running two HDMI cables to the tv and then just one sound output to the AV I would be able to just switch modes on the TV and not both the TV and the AV. It was just for the sake of convience.

On another note, PS3 looks wicked in 1080p. I went from a 36 inch CRT to this baby and it's like night and day. I have been playing heavenly sword and Ghost Recon and I love it. I was honestly thinking about taking off from work today just to enjoy the tv.

Spoken like a true American!

I recently just upgraded my DVD Player to an optical out cable instead of Digital Coax (Needed the Coax for the Cable box). I went round and round with getting the 5.1 light to light and finally found a setting in the DVD player that needed to be set to Bitstream. No problems now.

What I see you're doing is bypassing your Amplifier by going straight from each device to the TV. I don't think that will work. I think you need to run each device through the Amp so it gets a direct signal from each. This works for me anyways.

HDMI or DMI is from I can tell the best for picture quality, second is the Composite, S-Video Third and RCA Last. Audio is Best Optical, then Digital Coax, then RCA (No 5.1 with RCA).

It took me some time to figure all this out as to what was best, seems like there's a million opinions out there, kinda like the Treadmill/Airplane. Just use what works for you.

I did notice a huge improvement over RCA with Composite cables, much crisper colors, etc. The 5.1 (6.1 if I get enough speakers and subwoofers) is awesome, I watched several movies more than once just for the sound effects!

Good luck!

It's Component (R G and B RCA cables) not Composite (S-video or single RCA cable) just for clarification's sake

Looks like it has already been answered, but the best solution is to run HDMI to the TV, and optical to the receiver. This is the only way to get true 5.1 sound.

And I agree that the games look great in 1080p. I bought Resistance FOM several months ago, and just yesterday bought Call of Duty4. Both games look great, but COD looks fantastic. You need to also check out some Blu ray movies if you haven't already.

And just to clarify again, composite and s-video are two different things. S-video cable differs from composite in that it carries the brightness (luminance, or Y) and color (chrominance, or C) signals on separate lines within the same cable.