Best way to hook up my blue ray player.

Well pretty much if your receiver up converts like the new receivers do; you won't lose any pic. quality using that method.--cable box to receiver.
However this way you have to turn on your rec. just to watch the news.
So, If you have some component cables you can do the 3cables for video and the red/white for audio;you'll get a pretty good picture for watching the news on the component input for the tv.
Then if you are watching a movie on cable you can use the HDMI thru the receover and back to the tv on an hdmi input with your receiver. That way you get the best when watching movies.

I have the Elite Kuros and Elite receiver & Elite Bluray player. As a purist, I was somewhat hesitent with passing my video (via HDMI) through the receiver. I have seen no video degradaton from feeding streight to plasma or through receiver so am going through the receiver. It allows me the source switching convenience (Directv HD DVR; XBox and line scaler for SD TV) as well as allows the bluray codecs (albeit I understand the codecs can pass through the analogue outputs of my bluray player). Very simple and no loss in pic quality. And my wife can play a dvd while I am at work-so double cool for moi.

Cerrot and I have the same setup and to confirm his observations I found no difference in direct connections while the system approach (though the receiver) gains all the Pioneer conveniences and operational simplicity.

Cerrot, My wife and I just spent a few hours in front of a Samsung flagship LED display which was very nice. I even found a comparatively priced Elite monitor for this friend but his wife insisted on the thin LED. My wife and I both noticed a substantial lack of detail in this LED which was confirmed upon returning home. We love our plasma.

Let's not call the Sony BD-S300 Blu ray player a DVD player. It's a Blu-Ray disc player that also happens to play DVDs.