Blockbuster Movie Downloads

[jimfitz]

If I download a movie from Blockbuster to my laptop computer and output the audio to my Onkyo 805 using R/L RCA, will the audio going into the receiver be Dolby Digital 5.1? If I use S-video from the laptop to the receiver, will the computer determine the resolution or will the receiver and/or 1080p Samsung be able to up converter from the computer? Thanks.

 

[mike c]

no. R/L RCA is stereo.

you're gonna need a sound card that supports digital out (either optical or coaxial) there are external sound cards that can be used with your laptop.

s-video is a bit crappy when talking about resolution.

it's highly unlikely the picture would be nice without using either a VGA input/DVI to HDMI on the LCD. I used to watch using my video card's s-video out ... fonts are unreadable, movies are "watchable" if you have low standards.

after deciding that s-video was really crappy, I got myself a VGA repeater and split the signal from my vid card to my pc monitor and lcd tv.

after seeing the fonts are still not "pc monitor clear", I got a new vid card with vga and dvi outputs ... i then used a dvi to hdmi converter to connect to my lcd tv. that's as clear as it can get, but still not at par with dvd/HD quality.

i know these are PC solutions but I don't know the outputs of your laptop, my macbook has a mini-dvi, i believe most laptops have vga outputs

 

[jimfitz]

OK, thanks.

 

[Audioholics]

You also need to check that the downloaded movies have a digital soundtrack embeded - my thought is that they do not.

 

[jimfitz]

I downloaded and watched one of their free trials. It worked OK, but not great. The sound was two channel analog, but my Onkyo can improve that. The video was 720 X 480p on my Samsung 1080p monitor, which wasn't bad. I guess it's not something I will fool with unless I am going out of town and want a couple of movies to watch while I'm gone. Thanks for the replys.