Old HDMI 1.3 to 1.4 or higher converter?

N

Nostromo

Junior Audioholic
After planning and deciding upon brand new Home Cinema systems when we move into our flat in Bexhill, I looked at my older kit and thought what to do with them. The wife suggested installing them in the third (guest) bedroom and I thought it was a great idea rather than dispose of perfectly working kit. But there appears to be an unexpected problem.

The old system is centered around my Onkyo HTX-22HD 2.1 that consists of a Subwoofer/Receiver and 2 satellite speakers. It has 2 HDMI inputs and an HDMI out. The other units that I plan to plug into it are around the same generation and so should work fine. But we are also getting Sky Q in the flat I was also hoping to place one of the mini-boxes in the guest room and plug it to the old Onkyo. But someone said " Onkyo system only has HDMI 1.3 which means that it only supports HDCP 1.2. Sky Q mini boxes require a minimum of HDCP 1.4. I do not think that your old system will work with Sky Q."

Is this true? If so, is there a way to solve the problem? I have read about HDMI signal boosters and converters and could one of those help?
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
I think you will just have to try it and see if it works. The HDCP 1.4 allowed for faster two way high speed content protection. So it may or may not work. I would ask Sky. They should know to what lengths they have gone on content protection. A converter will not help you.
 
O

Otto Plyot

Junior Audioholic
HDMI is backwards compatible but only to the in-common feature sets. For example, an HDMI 1.4 souce connecting to an HDMI 1.3 sink would only recognize the HDMI 1.3 feature sets and vice versa. The feature sets are hard coded within the HDMI chipsets and unless the device mfr has designed their chips to be upgraded (not likely), you're pretty much stuck unless you upgrade your devices.
 
N

Nostromo

Junior Audioholic
A feedback from my original post in this thread.

Rather than mess about with a 11 year old Onkyo subwoofer/receiver that may not work with Sky Q, I decided to spend a bit more and upgrade for the guest room too. After all, the TV and the BD player going in there are less than 18 months old and I am getting a Sky Q mini-box and Marantz CD6006 there too.

I decided to get a Pioneer VSX 333 Receiver and Cambridge Audio x200 subwoofer with a pair of Minx Min 22 speakers (2.1 best possible for that room). I should be able to get good audio from all sources then, including TV resourced programmes via Optical out. I'll use RCA-RCA connection for the Marantz, thus enabling its own superb DAC. The Pioneer even has a dedicated Phono input for my record player.

Does that sound OK?
 

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