By Rick Campbell · 16 September 2026
Learn how to connect every input and source in your home entertainment setup. HDMI, streaming, legacy gear and more. Read the full guide now.
There's a particular kind of frustration that comes from staring at a wall of cables, a remote with too many buttons, and a television that stubbornly refuses to show what you actually want to watch. Australians spend billions on home entertainment equipment every year, yet a surprisingly large number of setups never reach their potential simply because the inputs and sources haven't been configured properly.
Whether you're setting up a brand-new media room in a Paddington terrace, wiring up a rumpus room in a Doncaster family home, or just trying to get your old DVD player working alongside your new 4K television, understanding how inputs and sources work is the foundation of a genuinely enjoyable home entertainment experience. This guide covers everything from the latest HDMI 2.1 connections through to legacy analogue gear, streaming devices, gaming consoles, and the increasingly popular world of smart home integration.
These two terms get used interchangeably, but they describe slightly different things. An input is a physical port on your device — the HDMI socket on the back of your television, the optical audio port on your soundbar, the RCA jacks on your amplifier. A source is the device or service producing the content — your PlayStation 5, your Foxtel iQ5 box, your Netflix app, or your Blu-ray player.
Getting the most from your setup means understanding both sides of this relationship. The best source in the world delivers a mediocre experience through the wrong input, and a premium display can't compensate for a poorly connected source.
HDMI remains the dominant connection standard for good reason. A single cable carries high-definition video, multi-channel audio, and control signals simultaneously. But not all HDMI connections are equal, and this is where many Australian buyers come unstuck when they upgrade their televisions without upgrading their cables or checking their device compatibility.
HDMI 2.0 supports 4K video at 60 frames per second, which is perfectly adequate for most streaming services and Blu-ray playback. HDMI 2.1, now standard on most televisions sold in Australia from 2023 onwards, supports 4K at 120fps, 8K at 60fps, and crucially, Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) — a feature that significantly reduces screen tearing when gaming.
If you own a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X, you'll want to connect these to an HDMI 2.1 port specifically. Most 2026-era televisions from LG, Samsung, Sony, and TCL include at least two HDMI 2.1 ports, though the exact port numbers vary by model. Check your television's manual rather than assuming — manufacturers don't always label ports clearly on the physical device.
Audio Return Channel (ARC) and its successor Enhanced ARC (eARC) allow your television to send audio to a soundbar or AV receiver through the same HDMI cable that's bringing video in. This eliminates the need for a separate optical or RCA audio cable between your television and sound system.
eARC, available on most soundbars and televisions manufactured after 2019, supports lossless audio formats including Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio — the same formats found on 4K Blu-ray discs. For Australians who've invested in a quality soundbar from brands like Sonos, Samsung, or Yamaha, ensuring your television's HDMI ARC port is connected to your soundbar's HDMI ARC input makes a meaningful difference to audio quality.
Nearly every television sold in Australia now includes a smart platform — Google TV, Tizen (Samsung), webOS (LG), or Android TV. These built-in platforms work well for most users, but there are legitimate reasons to add a dedicated streaming device via HDMI.
Dedicated streaming sticks and boxes — the Google Chromecast with Google TV, Apple TV 4K, Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max, and Nvidia Shield TV Pro — typically receive software updates more frequently than built-in television platforms. If you bought a television three or four years ago, its smart platform may no longer receive updates that support newer streaming services or codec improvements.
The Apple TV 4K is particularly popular among Australian households that are already embedded in the Apple ecosystem, offering seamless integration with iPhones, HomePod speakers, and iCloud Photo Library. At around $229 AUD for the current generation, it represents a meaningful investment, but the consistency of the experience justifies the cost for many users.
If you're running a Foxtel iQ5, an Apple TV, and a gaming console simultaneously, you'll quickly exhaust the HDMI ports on many televisions. An HDMI switch — a device that allows multiple HDMI sources to share a single television port — is a practical solution. Quality switches from brands like Orei or Zeskit, available through JB Hi-Fi and Scorptec, support HDMI 2.1 passthrough and won't bottleneck your 4K HDR signal.
Australia has a significant installed base of older audio-visual equipment, and there's no shame in wanting to keep a functioning DVD player, VCR, or older games console running alongside modern gear. Understanding the legacy connection landscape saves you from unnecessary purchases.
Component video — the red, green, and blue trio of cables — was the premium analogue connection before HDMI became standard. It supports up to 1080i resolution and remains the best analogue video option for devices like the original PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360. Most modern televisions have dropped component inputs entirely, but HDMI adapters that accept component signals are available for around $40–$80 AUD.
Composite video — the single yellow video cable alongside red and white audio cables — is lower quality, limited to standard definition, and produces a noticeably softer image. It's adequate for VHS playback where the source material is standard definition anyway, but you'll want to manage your expectations.
The TOSLINK optical audio connection, that small square port with a plastic cover, remains relevant because it appears on a wide range of devices that don't support HDMI ARC. Gaming headset receivers, older soundbars, and some Blu-ray players use optical connections as their primary audio output. Optical supports Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 but not the lossless formats that eARC handles, so it's a capable rather than premium solution.
Gaming represents one of the most demanding use cases for home entertainment connections, and getting it right requires attention to several variables simultaneously.
For PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X owners, the priority list looks like this: connect to an HDMI 2.1 port, enable VRR in both the console settings and the television settings, set your television to Game Mode (which reduces input lag from 80–100ms to under 5ms on most modern panels), and if you're using a soundbar, ensure your television's HDMI eARC connection to the soundbar is active so you're getting proper audio passthrough.
Nintendo Switch owners face a different situation. The Switch outputs at 1080p when docked, through a standard HDMI 2.0 connection. There's no benefit to connecting it to an HDMI 2.1 port specifically, though doing so causes no harm. The Switch's main audio-visual limitation is its maximum 1080p output — something Nintendo has addressed with the Switch 2, which supports 4K output through HDMI 2.1 when docked.
Multi-room audio has become significantly more accessible for Australian homeowners over the past five years, driven largely by the maturation of wireless speaker ecosystems. Sonos, Google Home, Amazon Echo, and Apple HomePod all allow you to designate sources — Spotify, Apple Music, ABC Radio, internet radio streams — and distribute them to speakers throughout your home.
The key input consideration for whole-home audio is the line-in connection. Sonos Port and the Sonos Era 100 include a 3.5mm line-in input, allowing you to connect a turntable, CD player, or any analogue source and stream it through your entire Sonos network. This is particularly popular among Australian vinyl enthusiasts who want to play their record collection through modern wireless speakers without compromising on sound quality.
In 2026, an increasing number of Australian homes are running some form of smart home platform — Google Home, Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, or proprietary systems from brands like Control4 and Crestron. Within these ecosystems, the concept of an input extends beyond physical cables to include virtual sources: routines triggered by voice commands, automations that switch your television to a specific input at a set time, or scenes that simultaneously dim the lights, lower the projector screen, and switch your receiver to the streaming input.
HDMI-CEC, the consumer electronics control protocol built into HDMI, enables basic device control across connections — turning on your television when you turn on your PlayStation, for example. Most manufacturers implement CEC under proprietary names: Samsung calls it Anynet+, LG calls it SimpLink, Sony calls it Bravia Sync. Enabling CEC in your device settings reduces the number of remote controls you need and creates a more cohesive experience across your inputs.
No signal errors, audio sync issues, and 4K HDR not activating are the three most common complaints heard in Australian electronics retailers. In the majority of cases, the fix is straightforward: check that HDMI cables are rated for the bandwidth you're pushing through them (look for "Ultra High Speed" certification for HDMI 2.1 use cases), ensure HDR is enabled in both the source device and the television settings, and verify that your television's HDMI port is set to Enhanced Mode rather than Standard Mode — a setting that's easy to overlook and prevents 4K HDR signals from passing through correctly.
Getting your inputs and sources configured properly is genuinely one of the highest-return investments of time you can make in your home entertainment setup. The equipment you already own almost certainly has more capability than you're currently accessing. Take an afternoon, work through each connection methodically, and the difference in your everyday viewing and listening experience will be immediately apparent.