Bringin' the BIG SCREEN HOME !

SO, you bought a BIG SCREEN...  But the picture just ain't there yet.

You might be wondering, "how do I hook everything together?"  There are a whole lot of options at this point.  First - The basics.

A Common Hookup Diagram

And we'll start with what is current and most common, otherwise known as:

What you need to know.  

HDMI ( High-Definition Multimedia Interface ) For digital audio, if an HDMI device supports audio, it is required to support the baseline format: stereo (uncompressed) PCM. Other formats are optional, with HDMI allowing up to 8 channels of uncompressed audio at sample sizes of 16-bit, 20-bit and 24-bit, with sample rates of 32 kHz, 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz, 88.2 kHz, 96 kHz, 176.4 kHz and 192 kHz.  

HDMI also supports any IEC 61937-compliant compressed audio stream, such as Dolby Digital and DTS, and up to 8 channels of one-bit DSD audio (used on Super Audio CDs) at rates up to four times that of Super Audio CD.  With version 1.3, HDMI supports lossless compressed audio streams Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.  As with the YCbCr video, device support for audio is optional. 

Audio Return Channel (ARC) is a feature introduced in the HDMI 1.4 standard. 

"Return" refers to the case where the audio comes from the TV and can be sent "upstream" to the AV receiver using the HDMI cable connected to the AV receiver.  An example given on the HDMI website is that a TV that directly receives a terrestrial/satellite broadcast, or has a video source built in, sends the audio "upstream" to the AV receiver.  

Source - Wikipedia