Home theatre for this TV

I have a Samsung HLR-5688w 1080p tv for which I am trying to build a home theatre. With a max budget of $800, I am leaning towards the Neuneo 2085 player which boasts of a 1080p output over HDMI (after a firmware upgrade) at a moderate price ($220). Now start the questions:

I have read in places that this TV does not accept 1080p over HDMI, but a Samsung rep told me that this TV ONLY accepts 1080p over HDMI. Unclear about what is true. Assuming that this TV does accept 1080p over HDMI, I can't think of any other DVD player that upconverts to 1080p other than some high-end Denon model.


The next question revolves around a receiver and speakers. This home theatre is for a living room in an apartment with the couch backed up all the way to a wall, but is movable. Does a 7.1 ch system make sense? If only, to use 5.1 ch now and add the two speakers later? Will it work with the 5.1 ch output of the DVD player or does the 5.1 ch output kill the 7.1 ch ability of the speaker system? Also what would be a recommended receiver + speaker set for this configuration? I'd rather buy one out of a box than search for individual speakers and receivers and deal with their incompatibilities.


I plan to connect the HDMI output of the DVD player to the TV and the digital audio output of the DVD player to the receiver. Will this configuration work optimally?

Thanks!