My new equipment (coming) is: Sony KDR 46w150 TV (has HDMI jacks and 120 hz feature) - Harman Kardon AVR 256 receiver (has HDMI jacks and a card that takes the place of a cable box) - Panasonic Blu Ray player (don't recall model number but it's the 2500 model, not the more expensive one) and Panasonic DMR- EZ48VK dvd recorder. Also reasonably nice speakers and a monster Klipsch powered sub. (Wow am I broke now!) Our main TV signal source is cable and we want to record a few TV shows onto the DVD recorder. We also want to rent Blu Ray discs and see those with best video and sound possible with our system. I've heard that you start by hooking the cable signal up to the AVR receiver and not to the DVD recorder so this is all different than what I am used to. For right now there is no cable box, just a plain cable (actually its just hooked up to a rooftop antenna for now but we'll be shelling out for Time Warner cable soon I guess) but to hook up for now from plain cable and get all this gear up and running so we can get the best quality video and audio? I mean, what box HDMI out goes to what HDMI in? Please keep in mind that the Panasonic DMR EZ48VK has some kind of card in it that is supposed to take the place of a cable box. Also, I am considering getting Belkin 1.3a HDMI cables but they aren't cheap so I'd like to know if cheaper HDMI cables are just as good. Thank you. James in Corpus Christi

If your AV receiver has a place to screw in your cable feed, which I kind of doubt, do that. If not, screw it into whatever will take it. Then just plug your HDMI cables from your sources into your AV receiver. It doesn't really matter what goes where on your receiver, but setup's a little easier if you plug your DVD into the DVD input, the BluRay into the BluRay, etc.

I'm not totally convinced that really expensive cables work much better than the more economical ones. Maybe it makes more difference with analog audio and video cables, but not so much with HDMI. Don't use the cheap cables that came with your equipment, but don't break the bank (which you proably already have) on getting the best money can buy.