Well I gave my 42" Panasonic plasma to my brother-in-law 'cause his TV died and he's on disability and..... wife said "you've been wanting a new TV. Why not give ours to Dan and..."

Anyways, now I have a 50" Samsung 4K ... a 6950.
I also have an older Yamaha RX-V667

On the one hand I'm being told to connect devices via HDMI direct to the TV for best picture quality. But then... the receiver...

Right now the RX-V667 does all of the switching. Devices are connected to the receiver (via HDMI) and the receiver feeds the TV. I have one HDMI from receiver to TV and then one optical (toslink) from the TV to the receiver for when we're watching OTA or using a TV app (netflix, hulu, whatever)

The TV feeds 5.1 through the toslink to the receiver, but... like many OTHER TVs I's looked at... only when the TV is the source. It won't pass 5.1 from an HDMI-connected source.

SO.... I was thinking (dangerous).. should I connect devices to the TV via HDMI and also then connect the devices to the Yamaha for audio (using toslink or digital coax)

The Yamaha has 2 optical and 2 coax inputs.
I have a DirecTV HR34 (has both optical and coax audio out), an Apple TV (optical out), and a 5-disc DVD changer (digi coax out)

So I've got enough inputs on the Yamaha to do:
TV --> Optical to receiver
AppleTV --> Optical to receiver
Satellite box --> Coax to rcvr
DVD changer --> Coax to rcvr

I guess my question is.... is this worth changing everything and reprogramming my URC MX-980? On one hand I kinda like that the video device (the TV) handles video switching and the receiver is only handling audio, but.... would there be any real advantage? It's not like I have anything feeding that TV a 4K signal (although I did stream some 4K content from Netflix and it was pretty nice)

OR..... should I just leave it alone as it is (everything to receiver. Receiver feeds TV)?

Buying a new AV receiver probably isn't in the cards (to pass the "better" video signal) and I looked for a simpler audio amp that had enough optical/coax inputs and actually didn't find any. I might be looking for the wrong thing though. AV receivers all have several HDMI inputs. Audio amps have no HDMI but also usually only 1 or 2 opt/coax.

So what would be the right way to do this?

Thanks

IMO, you have it hooked up the "best" way. As long as you are bypassing any video processing in the Yamaha, I don't think you're degrading your video, at all. Switching HDMI through the receiver makes switching (and remote programming) much simpler and will let you get the best audio you can from a Blu-ray.

I don't think you'll need to worry about upgrading your video switching until 4K components are released.

I wouldn't worry about trying to get the ARC working through the HDMI. It's a pain in the butt, at best. Using the optical is perfectly fine.