What AMP ??

[Stuman]

Hi everyone - I am new to this Forum, and as am not a member of any others, hope I am doing this right?

Anyway, I am extremly keen on setting myself up with Blu-ray but have a few questions I hope the experts out there can assist me with.

Technology seems so new though that the normal sources of good info at the electronics shops don't have much of an idea.

We are just in the process of moving to Hong Kong to work (arrive 6 Nov) so am setting up the home movie set up from scratch.

I have got (I think) my head round the basics I need:

HD capable TV (with a couple of HDMI connections to accept player and ,say a DVD hard drive recorder), Blu-Ray player (no surprise there) and, of course, an amp and speakers. It is the amp part of it that has me confused.

I see Panasonic have just launched an Amp to match their new player. Do you need a specific type of amp like this one to decode Blu-ray??

I presume as it only decodes the sound - anything accepting HDMI will work just fine??

Would appeciate any advise (suggestions which 42 / 50" TVs, players and speaker set ups would also be welcomed) as trying very hard to get this new set up right first time arround.

Thanks,

Stuman