I just got a plasma tv.

I want to run hdmi from my receiver to the tv, figuring best to use the best cables.

But none of my video sources have hdmi out (sat, cable nor dvd player).

Is it still possible to use hdmi for communicating the video to my tv? I coulnd't get it to work on my first attempts.

I believe it depends on the receiver, but I know I can't on mine sadly.

That's just stupid if true :/

What you are asking the machines to do is output HD material (720p/1080i/1080p) through an analog component cable to the receiver and convert it to HD digital signals and send it through the HDMI cable to the TV. If it did that it would violate the reason that the HDMI standard was designed - to prevent copying of HD material.

Most receivers will pass but not convert from one to another. I believe the Denon receivers will convert analog video inputs but only to 480p HDMI output.

BTW, if your DVD players lacks HDMI it does not upconvert to anything more than 480p. Thus, you get no advantage from HDMI. HDMI is far from the "best cable." Component cables have the technical ability to transfer 1080p signals much longer than HDMI cables. However, contractually the equipment manufacturers won't allow 1080p material to be transfered by anything but HDMI cables for copy protection reasons.

There are a good number of AVR receivers that will convert any of the analog inputs (component, S-video, and composite) into HDMI. On the lower end, such AVRs will just convert the analog inputs to HDMI 480p. On the higher end, some AVRs will apply upconversion/upscaling to the output resolution of your choice, including 1080p.

In general, converting from analog (which is no encryption) to digital (which can have content protection) is just fine. Converting the other way (from encrypted digital to unencrypted analog) is where content providers get concerned.