My Onkyo Home Theater System has video in and output ports. Why?

I have one too. Its called video switching. This way you can run more than one video source (cable box, dvd player, video game system.....) to the audio receiver and you program each source into the receiver. all you have to do is just select what source you want the receiver to send to the tv. Like you want to watch a dvd, just hit the dvd button and you're set.

The benefit is that its easier and you get the audio out of your home theater system too.

The advantage is to allow multiple video sources (i.e. DVD, cable, etc.) to run into the same receiver, allowing the video switching to occur with the receiver. If you run the video directly to your TV you would have to switch both the TV source (for video) and the receiver source (for audio) every time you wanted to switch between sources.

it makes wiring easier the Receiver acts as a switcher so you only need to run one video feed to the TV

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