alright...i bought 1 fiber optic cable and hooked it from the dvd to the receiver, and a digital coax from the dvr/cable box to the receiver

i'm going to hook the videos straight to the plasma and bypass any possible interference from running it into several other items

from what i read hdmi is the better than everything else but not sure why...it is a new standard that is only needed if you run hdtv (and the bandwidth it requires)