Convenience

[brianb]

I’m in the process of moving home which will be a full renovation and trying to plan out any av requirement’s/options,

In my current home I have a dedicated tv room with a Yamaha amp (rvx501) and Kefq100 speakers, whilst it sounds fantastic to me i find myself using the alternative tv with a basic LG soundbar attached via optical,

a lot of this i put down to convenience, with the lg I simply turn on the tv with the sky remote, the soundbar comes on automatically as does the sky box, the volume is again controlled by the sky remote as oppose to the tv room with 3 different remote controls

Any ideas on how to overcome this? multifunction remote maby?

[KamSandhu44]

Does the amp have CEC? This would allow you to use the Sky remote to control the volume on the amp.

And is it Sky Q or Sky HD?

[davek_964]

Buy a Harmony remote. I bought their top one six months ago after using something much higher end, and it's brilliant. Easy to set up, easy to use.

[brianb]

I'll look into the harmony remotes thanks,

Currently only have sky+ 1tb box and was looking at Sky q for when we move however having recently discovered these zgemma boxes I'm tempted to go with these instead

as it stands I have the DVD and sky into the amp via hdmi, is there any reason I cannot switch to DVD and sky hdmi into tv then optical out into amp for sound?

[OldSkoolRS]

I connect my AVR to my TV using the HDMI/ARC connection on the TV and did a one time set up in the AVR menu to enable this function. It can vary on how well it works with different makes of TV and AVRs, but seems to work well with my combo of Marantz AVRs and Panasonic TVs in two different rooms.

The beauty of it is that you don't even need a fancy remote (I do have a Harmony, but find it baffles visitors or other less techy family members). Even my 90 YO MIL can use the TV remote and isn't aware that the AVR is doing the sound; it just gets louder or quieter just as the TV would.

The simpler the better IMHO. I remember years ago buying a really fancy (for the time) touch screen remote and coming home to find the baby sitter sat watching TV with no sound because she couldn't figure out what button she'd pressed by accident...

[ladderino]

Another vote for a Harmony remote - these are often on Black Friday deals on Amazon so might be worth waiting for it.

If your amp and TV have CEC, then you don't need the optical out from the TV as you can do audio return through the HDMI lead.

[VEX]

davek_964 said:

Buy a Harmony remote. I bought their top one six months ago after using something much higher end, and it's brilliant. Easy to set up, easy to use.

Yep, on our installs we love the Harmony's - great little remotes, just wish they would have a proper number keypad