Very Noob, need early advice.

[AVno0b]

Hi

To start, I am planning on getting a 42in Plasma TV (not sure on brand/model yet, but it wont be bottom of the line ), im looking at 10000:1 ratio/1024/768, a reciever, and a 5.1 speaker set. Im still shopping for "package deal" prices, but Ill have them sometime next week.

What I would like to do, is use my computer as the basis for my entertainment center. Therefore, Id like to run the video and audio from the comp, through the reciever and TV.

I know a fair bit about computers, a decent amount about audio (mostly from car experience), and very little about video. I know *nothing* about setting all 3 of them up together. I also have a satellite reciever to hook up as well.

Is there anything in particular I need my reciever or TV to be capable of to do this before I buy one? I know that I need a "TV out" on my graphics card, and I have a Creative Soundblaster X-Fi sound card, which I can plug pretty much anything in to. I plan on running S-Video from the computer to the reciever to the TV, and Audio from Coaxial(i think?) from sound card to reciever.

So, Im not really asking anything in general, though I would absolutely love advice, hints and tips from those whose experience and knowledge of the AV world far surpasses mine!

Thanks in advance,

Cam.

 

[AVno0b]

Small change in plan, I found out from a friend that DVI is far far better than S-video, so I will be going that route instead

 

[evilkat]

Small change in plan, I found out from a friend that DVI is far far better than S-video, so I will be going that route instead

My friend, let me tell you of my woes in getting a Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS hooked up from my computer to my Yamaha receiver.

Your basic setup sounds exactly like the one I'm working on setting up right now. I got the Panny x60u 42" plasma (still hasn't shipped yet) and I'm planning to hook it up via an DVI->HDMI cable from my graphics card (I'm not going through the receiver just yet). You will be MUCH better off with the DVI cable than the silly S-video cable

I don't think you need any other 'special requirements' though, except to make sure that you have HDMI/DVI ports on your receiver and TV.

But with the soundcard, there are a couple of things you should be aware of:

1. You will NOT be able to get Surround sound on your audio if you play GAMES over the digital SPDIF out, unless the games are ENCODED in DOLBY/DTS. If the game uses EAX your sound card will have to decode it and send it over the analog outputs (lines 1-3)...Watching DVDs however should not be a problem over SPDIF

2. ....which leads us to the fact that your receiver should be able to accept lines 1-3 as DECODED outputs from the sound card. So basically line1 will contain L/R Front signals, Line2 L/R Surrounds and Line3 will contain Center/Sub signals. Now don't hold me to those exact discriptions of what each line is supposed to output...check the manual But basically this means you'll need a STEREO mini jack to RCA cable from all three line-outs to the specific inputs on your receiver. This also means your SOUNDCARD will be doing the decoding not your expensive receiver, but you will at least be able to game over the analog line outs.

These are the 'details' I wasn't aware of when I started this pain in the *** journey down the HTBox path
Keep an eye on the other thread because I"ll post my findings and solutions there (if I find any!)

 

[AVno0b]

So... How will i set it up so that games are played thru the minijack/rca, and movies will play from digital? Ive been looking at the exact same tv as you, the Pan x60, though the reciever im looking at is HK, with JBL 5 or 6.1 speakers. The only HK reciever ive found in town, is 5.1, but I may outsource for this since I live in a crappy little town.

I should be buying my stuff by the end of next week, hopefully since were doing the same thing, we can help each other (tho I dont know how usefull ill be, being that im so new to this

 

[evilkat]

So... How will i set it up so that games are played thru the minijack/rca, and movies will play from digital? Ive been looking at the exact same tv as you, the Pan x60, though the reciever im looking at is HK, with JBL 5 or 6.1 speakers. The only HK reciever ive found in town, is 5.1, but I may outsource for this since I live in a crappy little town.

I should be buying my stuff by the end of next week, hopefully since were doing the same thing, we can help each other (tho I dont know how usefull ill be, being that im so new to this

Hey no problem I'm a n00b too! This is the first time I'm setting up a HT system, having owned 2.1 since college!

For games, all you need is a bunch of STEREO minijacks->RCA adapters. $3.49 @ Radioshack.

My guess is (I haven't hooked up the minijacks for gaming yet) that once you hook up the digital link, you can specify in the soundcard when to output SPDIF and when not to. When you game, switch to analog so that sound goes to the minijacks. When watching a movie, switch to the digital SPDIF. Again, this is how I GUESS it will work. Annoying yes, but it'll probably get the job done.

As for the TV, you can let me be the guinea pig if you want and wait to see how it fairs in my setup or you can read up on the AVS forum, which probably has a 3,000 page long thread dedicated to it

I have to say, I can't recommend TV Authority as the place to go though, because their service sucks. I ordered about 2 weeks ago and it still hasn't even left the warehouse (it was 'in stock' at the time). I'm not at all happy about the situation.

However, from what I've read about the TV, for the price it seems like a decent box, but hardly the best or even great. It does have very good black-levels from what I see, but it fails the de-interlacing and cadence detection tests pretty miserably.

But that's okay, I've got a Yamaha RX-V2700 as a receiver which I hope to use to do some heavy lifting for deinterlacing with it's spiffy Anchorbay chip. Of course that doesn't help for OTA HD though.

I'll let you know how the AVIA tests go with the TV though. You might consider looking at the YAMAHA v659 though. Very affordable and CRAMMED with features (no video stuff though).

Because Gene condescended to review a lower-midrange receiver , this site actually has a review of it, so go check it out.

 

[AVno0b]

Sounds good, Ill check out the stuff, and let you know what I end up with in the end. Im not super rich atm, since i just bought a house as well, but I have a little left over, and definately want to upgrade my home theatre, as I have been watching most of my movies on a 21 in monitor for like 2 years.

 

[AVno0b]

Heading out today, looking at a 42 in Samsung, HK Amp, and "Soundstage" (made by makers of JBL/Infinity etc) speakers. Hopefully I can set it up tonight before i have to go to work

 

[AVno0b]

Ok so, got some gear now

Samsung HP-S4253, Harman Kardon AVR 145, and went with the Soundstage Speaker package, 2 f/r, 8' sub, center. I got one of those fancy Sub Pre-out cables goin to the sub, running 10 gauge speaker wire to the other 5 speakers. For the moment im just using RCA cable from Satellite reciever to TV, then RCA from TV to the AVR, but gonna change those soon. Rather than going DVI->HDMI cable for hooking up my comp, the Samsung has a VGA Input, so im just gonna use that!

Everythings working so far, now to get into the manual to figure out how to make it sound the best.

 

[evilkat]

Awesome! When you use your VGA input though, you max resolution might be limited and you probably won't get 1:1 pixel mapping.

Check the manual to see if this is the case.

 

[AVno0b]

I dont even see in the manual where it would tell me the specs on the VGA input =( Im still searching tho!

I went VGA because the "Computer Guy" at the electronics shop i bought all this from suggested it over DVI

 

[evilkat]

If the 'computer guy' had suggested this about a week or two ago I would have scoffed in his general direction and proceeded to insult his mother

However, now I'm beginning to see that DVI is not all it's hyped up to be in the HT industry....simply because it's not been implemented properly in some cases! Take for instance my Yammy 2700. It won't display the OSD over a DVI->HDMI cable, but the OSD appears fine over an S-VIDEO cable.

Apparently it appears on an HDMI->HDMI cable too, and it MAY appear on the DVI->HDMI cable if there's an input signal..but I haven't tested those two cases yet (waiting for some cables...and the damn TV)!

But at any rate, when I was looking at RPTVs made by Samsung, they were notorious for having dumbed down specs over VGA and highly discouraged the use of a DVI->HDMI connection on TV models that didn't sport a VGA connection. However when you dig through threads on the AVS forum, you find people successfully connecting via DVI/HMDI, so I'm sure you can do it.

I would suggest you skip the VGA port entirely and just go with DVI/HDMI and get full resolution on your TV...and fall back to the VGA port only if the DVI thing doesn't work.

Good luck!

 

[AVno0b]

I did find one part in the manual stating that when you use the "D-Sub" port for input, the "Optimum" resolution was 1024/768, which is what i was after anyway. I wont be hooking up the computer for about a week or so, but ill let ya know how it goes when I do

 

[AVno0b]

Well, everything is set up. Ive done a couple little tests with the image quality. My video card (GeForce 7600 GT) has Dual DVI outs. It comes from the factory with a DVI->VGA adapter for your monitor. I ran off to Radio Crack (ours is extremely over priced) and bought a DVI -> HDMI adaptor w/ HDMI cable, and tried running it with that set up. It worked, but all the letters had a slight fuzz or shake to them, and it hurt my head after a short while.

So, I ripped all that out, and ran a VGA cable from the previous adaptor, straight to the TV...and it looks perfect.I would suggest for anyone thats planning on getting a plasma display for thier comp to go VGA, even if it means buying that adaptor.

As for the audio, (sound card is Soundblaster X-Fi) I simply plugged an optical cable in, and everything is working. I had to reboot the comp a couple of times for it to recognize the reciever as an output, but the games I play seem to support Dolby (warcraft/bf 2142) SO! Everythings working, im a happy boy. Just need to pick up a cordless Keyboard and mouse now

Thanks for your help Evilkat, couldnt have done it without ya