What's the difference between a/v amplifier and receiver

I have got Panasonic TV which is connected to DVD player. I want to replace my a/v amplifier. Does any one know what is the exact difference between a/v amplifier and receiver. Any help will be extremely appreciated.

A receiver has everything built in one chasis. A receiver has a receiver in it (radio) as well as being an amplifier. The video switching, audio processing and amplifier all in one box. Granted the power amp in receivers are never as powerful as an outboard amp, there are some receivers that have enough power to handle most what you toss at it.

AV receivers usually provide one or more decoders for sources with more than two channels of audio information. This is most common with movie soundtracks. Movie soundtracks have been provided via a number of encoded formats.An A/V receiver has a built-in radio tuner. The first common format was Dolby Pro Logic. This format contained a center channel and surround channel. These channels were mixed into the left and right channels using a process called matrixing.

a/v amplifiers deal with video and audio signals and have varying bandwidths depending on whether the video signal is for SDTV, EDTV, HDTV 720p or 1080i/p etc.. The specification of the bandwidth itself depends on what kind of filter is used and which point (-1 dB or -3 dB for example) the bandwidth is measured. Certain requirements for step response and overshoot are necessary in order for acceptable TV images to be presented.

Check this guide for audio and video connection : All about the audio / video connections