Picking a new TV up tomorrow, and over the weekend will (attempt to) hook it up to the AV receviever which has been sat quietly waiting for a new tv to arrive. But….its dawned on me i have no idea what to connect to which bit.

Any advice on what needs to be connected with what (HDMI, optical etc)

I will have:

TV
PS3 (for blue-ray)
HD PVR
AV receiver

All should have the relevant HDMI’s / Optical connections etc.

Cheers

Ideally it should all filter into the Amp via hdmi (for video) and optical for audio (as you mentioned it). Then a single hdmi to the TV.

Now this is dependant on your amp having HDML passthrough else you will get no picture unless the amp is on at the time.

Good luck 🙂

Ideally it should all filter into the Amp via hdmi (for video) and optical for audio (as you mentioned it).

Only reason to keep a TOSlink in the equation is if you have a Sky HD box, as Sky in their infinite wisdom only pass Dolby Digital over optical (which took me a night of head-scratching to discover).