Best home theater setup.

Is my home theater/cinema setup correct?

• Currently, my family is finishing the basement and we're going to install a home theater. I have no prior knowledge to installing a home theater so I am wondering if what I'm thinking is a correct setup. So, according to my knowledge, the receiver is like the brain of the whole home theater. All devices (game consoles and DVD players) output to the receiver which the image is then outputed to a projector. As the projector has no sound, the receiver is connected to a surround sound system (I'm thinking about 5.1 channel) and outputs all audio to those speakers. All in all, speakers are all hooked to a receiver and image goes from device to receiver to projector and audio goes from device to receiver to surround sound. PS: Does a receiver also act as an amplifier and can it output HD audio? Please tell me any other pointers I missed or would need to know. Thanks.

• Answer:

  You've got it right my friend. Yes, all of your "source components" (DVD, Game consoles, Blu Ray, etc.) should connect to your surround sound receiver and then the video will be sent to your projector or TV. This is absolutely correct. While there are other ways of connecting a surround sound system, this is the highly preferred method. Also, most receivers do have built in amplifiers, unless you get into high end equipment like Rotel or MacIntosh. Then you will find surround sound preamp with separate amplifiers.