I'm looking around at 5.1 receivers. All of them I've seen have both video and audio inputs/outputs. Why does video go through the receiver? I had one years ago that just took audio. Video RCA went straight to the TV. I had a friend that also had a receiver with a video input/output that he used and the picture would flicker whenever there was a loud sound in the movie.

This makes no sense to me unless you are running a cheapo video source and the receiver has some kind of upconvert functionality. Otherwise it seems pointless.

So when you change sources the video switches with the sound. This is how I have mine setup. Picture is clean no flicker. It's nice to have Pandora up on the screen so you can see artist info etc, chromcast, directv, and verizon fios.

There's a bunch of reasons, the primary one is that you can't do 5.1 or 7.1 uncompressed through optical or coaxial so it has to be done over HDMI.

To be able to use one remote and control everything.   How you gonna run DVD/BluRay and Cable, and computer, and video game console video feeds separately, as well as audio feeds separately and then teach an 11 year old, an 8 year old, and the wife how to use it all?

 

Your buddy got a shitty receiver if it flickers during loud noices.

That makes sense. I rarely had more than two sources (only have 2 video, 1 audio now) so it wasn't a big deal, but that would definitely be troublesome with several sources.

I think my friend's unit was a pioneer. It was an old one though and didn't have HDMI ins/outs. Only RCA/component.

switching and running sound thru hdmi cable