Advice on Soundbar/BluRay/Amazon Fire TV setup

[Smiler.]

Usually I try a bit of my own research on these things before buying anything.

I've been toying with the idea of a soundbar for a few years now & never quite arriving at a plan - so here I am.

At the moment, we have an analogue distributed Sky+HD with a 2nd old (now busted) Sky+ box.

The main TV is a Panasonic TH-50PZ70B (back panel shown below):





Connected to this is a Panasonic DVD Home Theatre System & the Sky+HD box (both via HDMI).

What I'm after is a replacement for the DVD Home Theatre System to combine a Sound Bar & add a BluRay player, with the option of ditching the Sky+HD system & replacing it with the Amazon Fire TV.

I actually want the BluRay player to also be a region-free DVD player too so not keen on an integrated unit.

I haven't thought too much about the distribution of the Amazon Fire TV or an add-in HDD. I do have a SATA Caddy & plenty of 1-2GB HDD's floating about so intended to look at that later but any tips on this would be handy.


Anyway, the Home Cinema DVD player currently has an optical cable linking into the Sky+HD box & the whole thing is activated via the Viera function on the TV menu. My questions are:

1. What would be the best Panasonic solution (so the Viera link thingy still works)?
2. Is there anything else/other manufacturer I could look at without losing functionality?

Some of the Panasonic stuff needs an ARC compatible TV. I assume mine is because it already works but looking at the back panel, not sure if 1, 2 or both of the HDMI connections support ARC.

I tried to compare the specs of the Panasonic Home Cinema/Sound Bar kit but could not understand the differences (i.e. what the differences actually mean).


So if anyone has any info or help that could post one here, I'd be grateful.

Thanks

[stuarthat]

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[stuarthat]

If no replies go onto avforum .

[Smiler.]

stuarthat said:

If no replies go onto avforum .

Thanks, will do.