Hi Chris,
After looking at the specs of the Samsung you are looking at and for your budgeted price range, I would say this is probably your best bet.
The main problems I see with this unit is that there are no component (R,B,G) or s-video connections leaving you with the least of the video standards, the composite connection. And you only have two composite in connections, which means you will have to connect one of your components to your display directly. So make sure you have a minimum of two video inputs on your display.
For your TV viewing, if you are interested in satellite/cable with HDTV and 5.1 surround you will want to reserve one optical in connection for your satellite/cable receiver (which is already designated as Satellite/cable in on this unit). You will have to hook up your video directly to your display because this unit will not be able to provide HDTV video. However, if you are not concerned with HDTV and 5.1 surround sound then this unit is good to go.
For the PS2 you will want to reserve one optical in connection to enjoy 5.1 surround sound for your gaming experience. You will connect your composite video into the receiver. But, this unit does not have another optical devoted to a aux input such as the PS2.
For your DVD player, you will need a optical connection (which is designated as DVD optical in) if you wish to use 5.1 and especially 6.1 surround sound. And again, you will need to connect the composite video to the receiver. You will also want to use your DVD-player for any DVD-Audio or SACD that you will want to play. If you want to reserve the designated DVD optical for your PS2, you can so this by using the 5.1 out on your dvd player to your 5.1 in on your receiver and accomplish having 5.1 surround sound for your DVD's and DVD-Audio discs. But you will sacrifice your 6.1 surround sound.
You can use the coax digital connection, but the quality of sound will be deminished slightly compared to the optical because it uses wire vs light for transmitting the signal. Also, I am not sure if you can assign the Digital Coax seperately to another component.
For your laptop, there is a device that you plug into the headphone jack of your laptop which will allow you to transmit your music through the receivers FM or AM tuner. This costs about $29 and has a 30ft radius for tranmitting the signal. This can be found at Best Buy and/or Radio Shack.
As far as the sound goes, if you are not happy with the bass (LFE), simply purchase a new subwoofer down the road. You might not like the sound of the center speaker because of the size of the speakers, so you can either use the speakers built into your display or upgrade the center speaker to one that has more of a frequency range.
Other than that my suggestion would be to jump up to the $400-500 range to find a better unit that will provide more connection options.
Hope this helps. If you have any other questions, feel free to contact me.
Shawn Mosqueda
WireSmart LLC
www.wiresmart.com
shawn@wiresmart.com
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