help with simple home setup

[pauldavies85]

Hi i'm new to this world, well kinda - i love my music and did used to have a very good set-up some time back. Right, I'm setting up from fresh and want a simple balance of decent quality stuff, hopefully with the least components possible.

i have just got an absolute bargain of a tv off a friend, he's a massive hifi geek and decided he neded something even more expensive. Its a 50" nec plasma only about 12 month old, but i need everything else to watch it! (no tuner/speakers etc) I will be using sky HD for tv input, no normal signal where I live anyway!

So what I want to know is how can I get the simplest set up for this including blu-ray and hifi. I'm not interested in surround sound, so i would like to run sound out through an amp to two speakers in living room(do-able?)
Can i realistically use a blu-ray player as my cd player?? Is a PS3 a good consideration for blu-ray, i dont play much but it does seem a tempting combo!

Can i take sound directly from player/PS3 to an amp then to floor speakers?

I dont mind buying more if i need it but i prefer not to have thousands of boxes around!

any info appreciated