said by manhattan123:Great, thanks all for the feedback and info. It's annoying having to go this extra step, but at least it seems like it will be fairly simple to get around. (I wonder why they don't make the FIOS box so that it feeds out in 5.1 to the TV - they must know that a lot of people use home theater but have this same situation where they sometimes only want the sound coming out the tv speakers without always having to fire up the AVR every time.)
My system is a little older perhaps and i do not have the advantage of HDMI at my TV or H/T receiver. I use HDMI to DVI, no audio thru a DVI connection.
From the FiOS STB i use the RCA audio outputs to my tv. I also use the optical output from the FiOS STB to my Yamaha H/T Receiver.
I use a Harmony 670 remote, when i press watch TV it turns on my TV and the STB and the TV gets sound from the RCA outs thru the TV.
When i press Watch DVR-2 the Harmony remote turns on my TV, my STB and my Yamaha recevier and sound is now controlled thru the Yamaha and i get awesome 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound.