Only one cable to play with - what receiver...???

[tanglin]

I helped my friend put in his new 50" plasma last night. After getting over the jealousy, I discovered he'd built his room and put in only a single set of component cables (no audio) and one HDMI cable into the wall. So, since he doesn't want to rip the wall down again, he needs a receiver which will take in several different types of A/V connectors and route the A/V out through HDMI to his new toy.

His cable box has HDMI also, but also component, so although ideally we'd like a box with multiple HDMI inputs, it's not essential.

His room is reasonably large (maybe 20x25), with openings at the back into the rest of the house.

What receiver would people recommend for this scenario? Probable budget is about $400? He wants to put in a 5.1 or better system...

 

[MDS]

You will have to triple your budget to get what you need, which is a receiver that has multiple HDMI inputs and also transcodes other signals for output over HDMI. For twice the budget you can get a receiver with multiple HDMI inputs, but no transcoding. I hope that $400 budget didn't also include speakers in addition to the receiver because that is definitely a non-starter.

 

[j_garcia]

Have to agree with MDS, that's going to be practically an impossible task just for the receiver on that budget, since HDMI switching is a relatively new feature for receivers and is definitely not seen on models in that price range that I've seen.

 

[tanglin]

It did not include speakers, but HDMI input switching is a luxury maybe can be done without.

If there's a unit with component/S-video to HDMI output...??

 

[patnshan]

I helped my friend put in his new 50" plasma last night. After getting over the jealousy, I discovered he'd built his room and put in only a single set of component cables (no audio) and one HDMI cable into the wall. So, since he doesn't want to rip the wall down again, he needs a receiver which will take in several different types of A/V connectors and route the A/V out through HDMI to his new toy.

His cable box has HDMI also, but also component, so although ideally we'd like a box with multiple HDMI inputs, it's not essential.

His room is reasonably large (maybe 20x25), with openings at the back into the rest of the house.

What receiver would people recommend for this scenario? Probable budget is about $400? He wants to put in a 5.1 or better system...

The moral of the story is RUN GIANT CONDUIT WHEN DOING A NEW ROOM FOR A/V.

I plan to run some in my basement pre-construction. What size is needed to fit HDMI/DVI heads through?

Pat

 

[patnshan]

What about the panny XR-70? I am not sure about it's switching capability but it does have HDMI input.

Pat

 

[j_garcia]

It did not include speakers, but HDMI input switching is a luxury maybe can be done without.

If there's a unit with component/S-video to HDMI output...??

The point was that HDMI on receivers at all isn't common yet. The Yamaha RX-V1600 can do that, but you aren't likely to find one for $400; it MSRPs for ~$1K.

Worst case, it shouldn't be a problem to use the component cable as an analog audio cable.

 

[tanglin]

The moral of the story is RUN GIANT CONDUIT WHEN DOING A NEW ROOM FOR A/V.

I plan to run some in my basement pre-construction. What size is needed to fit HDMI/DVI heads through?

Pat

Too true.

DVI is the largest, think of a computer video plug. It's reasonably large, about 1" x 0.5". Run that one first!

 

[tanglin]

The point was that HDMI on receivers at all isn't common yet. The Yamaha RX-V1600 can do that, but you aren't likely to find one for $400; it MSRPs for ~$1K.

Worst case, it shouldn't be a problem to use the component cable as an analog audio cable.

That's probably what we'll end up doing, unless we can pull another pair through.