The receiver johnK linked says HDMI 1.3 (video only). Does that mean you still have to run a optical or coax audio cable to the receiver from any components for sound, or is that just if you wanted to pass sound thru to your TV from an HDMI out if you weren't using external speakers?
Yes, you are correct. There are some entry level Denon models that will pass only video through HDMI. Not sure how old this model is but it was common with some of their entry models around 2-3 years ago.
If you are using HDMI through this receiver you will have to run a separate audio cable (toslink/coax) for sound. In the case of Blu-ray if you want to use the lossless audio that this format supports you will need a Blu-ray player with multi-channel analog outputs and processes these codecs internally.
