Thread: DVD home theater - want to upgrade to Blu-Ray?

Several years ago when we purchased our LCD TV we also bought a Panasonic DVD player home theater system (SC-PT650). Our TV has two HDMI inputs. One currently is for our cable box, and the other is for our DVD player.

The DVD/home theater is a decent (for our needs) system that was easy to hook up. The only deviation was that when we had our basement remodeled a year before, we pre-wired the surround sound wires in the ceiling, and we had to clip the factory wires from the surround speakers and reconnect them using our hidden (ceiling) wires.

Now we're ready to upgrade to a Blu-Ray player. Ideally, I want to continue to use our existing speakers since they're already set up. To achieve this, I think I have a few choices -

1) buy a Blu-Ray home theater system, and either use my existing speakers (if I can - the current DVD player allows for two wires per speaker and not the newer color-coded plug), or hang all new speakers. Either way, I end up with an set of extra speakers.

2) buy a receiver and hook my existing speakers into this. Then independently buy a Blu-Ray player and connect it into the receiver. This solution has some pros - I can connect my VHS player to to the receiver for those rare occasions I would need it, and I can better hide the cable clutter. The con that I see - my current subwoofer uses wiring like the other speakers (positive and negative), while the receivers I'm looking at have a distinct subwoofer single connector. I'd probably have to buy a new subwoofer if I can't use my existing subwoofer's wiring.

3) some other solution I haven't thought of.

Money is an object, and I'm looking for the most practical solution to use my existing pieces.

Thoughts?

Depends on how cheap you really want to go. I think you should buy a new receiver and a sub, then when you have the money you can slowly replace the speakers. Don't buy a home theater in a box deal they are usually very cheap. If the blu-ray player goes bad in a HIB system then the whole thing is garbage. The other nice thing about a receiver is you can buy one with HDMI switching so you don't have an issue of not having enough HDMI inputs on the television.