Connecting up your home theatre equipment is really a fairly simple task, but there are a few different ways of doing it depending on what components you have and what image and sound quality you want to achieve. This guide will help you get the best quality from the audio, video and hi-fi equipment you have.

Positioning speakers is critical to the quality of your sound, perhaps more than any other aspect of home cinema setup. It's also critical to the look of your entertainment area and a cause of a lot of fights between partners, leading to what's known amongst enthusiasts as SAF, or Spouse Approval Factor. In an ideal world, you'd have the room, money and romantic carte blanche to have seven fridge-size speakers and a subwoofer capable of architectural demolition. In the real world, you want speakers and home cinema gear like Blu-ray or DVD players receivers and televisions that are unobtrusive and stylish enough to meet with your partner's approval and a sound that is convincing for a given budget. Let's look at the options.

Now we're talking. This is the easiest way to get the most from your BDs and DVDs. All you have to do is plug the Blu-ray player's HDMI output into your receiver's HDMI input, plug the receiver's HDMI output into the HDTV's HDMI input, and you're done! HDMI makes everything simple, and keeps the quality digitally perfect.

If you're a Blu-ray convert (and if you have an HDTV, you should be...), and you have an HDTV but are using your old surround sound receiver, you're not really going to be able to use the S/PDIF digital connectors (TOSLnk optical or RCA coaxial electrical) to get surround sound. Blu-ray uses Dolby Digital TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, neither of which are supported by older receivers. What you can do is use your Blu-ray player's six or eight analogue output sockets and connect them to the surround receiver's 5.1 or 7.1 analogue inputs. It's not as elegant as using HDMI, but if you have a good quality older receiver, the sound will be better than a cheap new HDMI receiver. You needn't worry about also connecting a separate DVD player, Blu-ray players play DVDs very well indeed and usually upscale them to match your HDTVs native resolution.

If you already have an older surround sound system without HDMI ports and are incorporating an HDTV into the system, there are some minor issues that can pop up, but no fear, there's always a way to solve them.

If you don't have much left for sound after buying your big TV, there's still a lot to be said for using your trusty old stereo setup instead of your TV's speakers. TV speakers are seldom capable of any dynamic range, bass weight or refinement, especially the tiny speakers hidden in flatscreens. Luckily, every Blu-ray or DVD player can be plugged into your existing amplifier and speakers in exactly the same way as a CD player.

If you have made the leap to high-definition Blu-ray discs, the only way to get the full 1080p resolution of the discs onto your screen is to use an HDMI cable. If your HDTV predates HDMI, use analogue Component cables, but it's not the best way to do things.

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Since pretty much every TV you'll have bought in the last few years is likely to be a flat, widescreen HDTV, either plasma or LCD, you'll want to get the best quality you can from your DVD player. We recommend you do not use a Composite cable. If your DVD player is an older, standard-definition-only model, use an S-Video cable or Component RCA cables to get the best picture. Use the setup or configuration menu of your DVD player to make sure the output is set to fit a widescreen TV's aspect ratio and set the TV to fill the screen, or you'll find the picture distorted and stuck in the middle of a mess of letterboxes and pillarboxes.

If you haven't yet joined the world of high-definition televison, connecting your DVD player to your TV is very straightforward. Simply plug the DVD player's "Video Out" and "Audio Out" RCA cables into the television's "Video In" and "Audio In" socket. While the basic yellow Composite cable is perfectly adequate, it is the lowest quality connector and you'll want to use either S-Video or Component video cables instead. S-Video cables are easily identified by a connector with a metal ring surrounding four small pins, and a Component connection uses three RCA or phono cables with red, green and blue connectors.

HDTV, HD-Ready, Full HD, 720p 1080p... Which is is which and what is what? If you're about to purchase a plasma or LCD TV, you can be confronted by loads of confusing terminology. High-Definition Television can be bewildering to the newcomer, and sometimes even the more technically knowledgeable.