Help me connect my PC to my HDTV and receiver

[arredondo]

I have a new Q6600 Quad Core2 Vista OS computer with a GeForce 8800 GTS SuperClock 640 MB card. I would like to connect it to my Sony 60" SXRD XBR2 1080P HDTV, and my 5.1 audio setup connected to an Onkyo 604 receiver via HDMI.

My card has two DVI out ports, and my HDTV has two HDMI in ports and a VGA port. If I want to play games on my big screen, what do I need to do to make everything work well? I've heard it's best to convert DVI out to HDMI in instead of VGA because of some reason. If so, can someone link to the proper cable?

I also hear that there is a distance limit for quality HDMI connections. What is the longest cable that I could use for decent results? Can I get up to 30+ feet, or are we talking 6 feet and under?

How best do I connect to my audio receiver? It receives HDMI, optical, RCA, and phono connections. I have a 5.1 SoundBlaster card... can someone link to a cable or something that will properly connect it to my Onkyo 604 for full speaker support?

If there is anything I missed, some caveat to look out for, I appreciate any extra feedback on it. Thanks in advance!

 

[PurdueRy]

HDMI cables can go further with larger gauges.

http://www.monoprice.com/produ...id=2809&seq=1&format=2
http://www.monoprice.com/produ...id=2810&seq=1&format=2

That would work...its pricey due to its gauge

http://www.monoprice.com/produ...id=2753&seq=1&format=2

This would also work if you don't need to go beyong 35ft

As for the sound...it just depends if you need surround sound from games....seeing as your distance to the receiver I doubt you do or would even want to.

If your soundblaster has a SPDIF mini-out then get a 3.5mm to RCA converter(stereo or mono...won't matter. And then run a standard 75 ohm Coax cable to the receiver.

 

[arredondo]

Heh, I sit only 10-11 feet from the HDTV... I need 30+ feet so that I can feed the cable around the walls to keep people from tripping over it.

If that changes your advice (because I do want 5.1 audio), let me know what to do. Here is my card, the Audigy SE Soundblaster. In any case, thanks for the detailed and quick reply!

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: arredondo
Heh, I sit only 10-11 feet from the HDTV... I need 30+ feet so that I can feed the cable around the walls to keep people from tripping over it.

If that changes your advice (because I do want 5.1 audio), let me know what to do. Here is my card, the Audigy SE Soundblaster. In any case, thanks for the detailed and quick reply!

I know you want 5.1 audio but do you need/want 5.1 audio from games? Maybe that's what you were implying but I just want to confirm.

Also would you be willing to invest in a different sound card?

 

[arredondo]

Yes, 5.1 in games is very important. In first-person shooter games, you get improved spatial awareness of who is running/shooting to the sides and behind you based on the audio alone.

Since this card outputs in 7.1, is there a reason to consider a different one? It sounds great on my mini 5.1 setup connected to the computer.

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: arredondo
Yes, 5.1 in games is very important. In first-person shooter games, you get improved spatial awareness of who is running/shooting to the sides and behind you based on the audio alone.

Since this card outputs in 7.1, is there a reason to consider a different one? It sounds great on my mini 5.1 setup connected to the computer.

It would be simpler to get a card capable of DDL/DTS connect and having the receiver handle the D/A conversion along with running only one wire. With your current card it would require running 3/6 cables(they need to split) and your receiver must have 6 channel analog direct in or greater on it.

Depends if you have this connection and if you want to have your sound card do the decoding/settings or let your receiver handle the decoding/crossover etc.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

I'll go ahead and link the Digital Audio Thread in here.

I should really update it with some of the newer DD/DTS encoding options out there.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=30&threadid=1940133

 

[arredondo]

Hmm, I'll research the links and figure out my next move. Thanks fellas.

 

[arredondo]

I got the picture up and it looks great! However, am I limited to 1920x1080 or 1280x720? I can't seem to select 1600x900, which would be the best resolution I think for game performance and quality visuals.

Now for audio. YOyo... I want to go with this 5.1 option from your write up:

For analog audio, normally cables are built in to computer speakers systems or they come with the system. If you want to connect analog to a receiver, you just need to get some adapters to go from 3.5mm to RCA. One of those would get you a stereo signal while three of them connected to a 5.1 input from three analog outputs on you soundcard would get you true surround sound.

Can you show me which audio stuff to get at monoprice in links? I want to make sure I get the correct stuff for my receiver (Onkyo 604). The length is about 40 feet.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: arredondo
YOyo... I want to go with this option from your write up:

For analog audio, normally cables are built in to computer speakers systems or they come with the system. If you want to connect analog to a receiver, you just need to get some adapters to go from 3.5mm to RCA. One of those would get you a stereo signal while three of them connected to a 5.1 input from three analog outputs on you soundcard would get you true surround sound.

The only concern I really have is the bass management if you go this way. I don't know what the current situation on the SB drivers is for setting a crossover point.

If you hook up via 5.1 analog, you may only be able to send fullrange to the speakers and bass they are incapable of playing would just be lost vs. being played by the subwoofer. 5.1 analog probably bypasses your 604's bass management.

You can certainly try it though.

I'm not sure how long the cables need to be, but something like three of these would be the cables you need.
http://www.monoprice.com/produ..._id=665&seq=1&format=2

EDIT: Oh, you edited in a length

For 40 feet, I would say get three adapters
http://www.monoprice.com/produ..._id=666&seq=1&format=2
And then use regular RCA cable to make up the rest of the length.

For a 40 foot run, that might get mildly expensive though. ~$40?
And you still might run into bass management issues.

 

[arredondo]

Heh,I guess I'm unsure of something... how do I use three adapters when there is only one 3.5mm out port coming from the audio card for the 5.1 computer audio I now receive?

My Logitech 5.1 speaker setup connects all 4 satellites to my sub, which feeds one line into an audio module (volume control, on/off), which then sends two cords into my sound card (mic and 5.1 audio). So I'm not sure how I would use three of those adapters since there is only one slot to plug them in (spec page of the Audigy):

* Line level out (Front / Side / Rear / Centre / Subwoofer) or Headphone out
* Line In / Microphone In / *Digital I/O1
* Aux Audio in

 

[cubby1223]

Originally posted by: arredondo
I got the picture up and it looks great! However, am I limited to 1920x1080 or 1280x720? I can't seem to select 1600x900, which would be the best resolution I think for game performance and quality visuals.

Pretty much. In the driver control panel, you should be able to select nvidia scaling for lower resolutions to work in games. Haven't tried it myself, though, but what I have experience with, the nvidia drivers work with hdtv displays exceedingly well.

 

[arredondo]

Ahhh, that's the answer I think. I'll test tomorrow, but I remember an option to use Nvidia's scaler and didn't try it. Woohoo! I'm loving today's technology.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: arredondo
Heh,I guess I'm unsure of something... how do I use three adapters when there is only one 3.5mm out port coming from the audio card for the 5.1 computer audio I now receive?

My Logitech 5.1 speaker setup connects all 4 satellites to my sub, which feeds one line into an audio module (volume control, on/off), which then sends two cords into my sound card (mic and 5.1 audio). So I'm not sure how I would use three of those adapters since there is only one slot to plug them in (spec page of the Audigy):

* Line level out (Front / Side / Rear / Centre / Subwoofer) or Headphone out
* Line In / Microphone In / *Digital I/O1
* Aux Audio in

I'm fairly confused right now about what products you have and how they're connected now.

5.1 means 5 speakers + 1 subwoofer.
Is your Logitech setup a 4.1 set or a 5.1 set?

Better yet, what model is it?
z-5300/z-560/z-680/z-5500?


5.1 audio can be sent from a soundcard either through analog or digital.

For digital, you can use digital optical or digital coaxial (may require adapters, and not all cards support this).
If you do this, one cable can send either PCM stereo (2.0/2.1) or it can pass a DD/DTS stream that's already encoded (5.1 from a DVD, etc.)

There are also cards that can do 5.1 via digital when the source material is multichannel but is not already encoded in to DD/DTS. These cards can encode DD/DTS in real time and give you 5.1 digitally from sources like games.


On the other hand, there's analog, which is usually the better bet when you're hooked up to computer speakers. In this case, you need multiple 3.5mm connections to give you multiple channels of sound.

A single 3.5mm connection can give you 2-channels of sound.
(Creative actually did something goofy for their cards that support higher than 5.1, but we're talking 5.1 here, so I won't get into it).

To hook up a 4.0/4.1 setup (which it sounds like your Logitech set might be based on your description), you need two 3.5mm connections for a total of 4 audio channels.
The Logitech system would then apply its own internal crossover control and send the low frequency information from those 4 channels to the subwoofer for a final configuration of 4.1

To hook up a 5.0/5.1 setup (which I thought is what we were doing), you need three 3.5mm connection for a total of 6 audio channels.
The Logitech system would then again take the low frequency info off the 5 regular channels and redirect it to the subwoofer as well as taking that 6th audio track of low frequency information specifically for the subwoofer and play all that on the sub for a final configuration of 5.1

On your SB card, you'll have at least 3 3.5mm audio jacks that should be able to be configured in the SB software to be used for anything from 2.0 to 5.1 (or higher maybe if you have more jacks).

So there's no "5.1 audio" jack unless you're hooking up digitally and it's outputting digital optical or digital coaxial to your setup.

Some older Creative cards also had a "digital DIN" output that would again be a digital connection that could output multichannel audio over a single connection, but it could only be used with some creative speaker sets that could understand the output signal it was sending. This was before I really paid any attention to all this stuff though, so I'm not very familiar with it.

Where does your receiver fit into all this? Is it going to be replacing the Logitech set?

 

[arredondo]

My mistake! It is 4.1 on my computer currently... the the Z-580.

My plan is to simply unplug my Z-80 audio connection when I go play on the big screen HDTV and plug in my Onkyo 604 (which is connected to Velodyne Front Row 5.0 Speakers and a BC H-100 subwoofer) once I get the cables.

Looking at the back of the 7.1 Audigy SE card, I can see multiple 3.5 ports but I didn't realize that they can be independently used for the center, fronts, and rears. So three adapters should do it, huh? OK, I'll get them today and then just attach six long RCAs. They should have this stuff at my local Fry's Electronics.

I guess you were asking how the Audigy handled crossaover for the low frequencies so that the sub is properly fed. There is a fully featured control program that it comes with; hopefully I can find what I need there. Currently for my home theater setup I have all low frequencies going to the sub... none from the satellites. Of course my Onkyo does that for me so I hope it does so for the computer feed as well.

Thanks again for the help - I'll report back once I set it up.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

I had the 560s as well before I got going on my real speaker set.
Abused the heck out of them for 3 years and still sold them for only $40 less than I bought them for

I'm not sure how much Fry's is going to charge you for all those cables. Cables are one area where B&M electronics stores really tend to jack up the prices on things to try to make a profit.

Your Onkyo 604 bass management settings will probably be bypassed when you hook up via multichannel analog so the creative software is your only hope afaik.

"Bass Redirect" is the term creative uses for that feature on the newer cards, so I hope they have that on your card as well. I'm not exactly sure the details behind how it works, but it seems to serve as the crossover control from what I have read.

Try to find that on your card before you buy the cables.

If you don't have that option, you might want to just buy a new card that would be a lot easier for you to use.

If you got something like and Xplosion or something similar, you could have it hooked up to your z-560s via analog and then send a DD/DTS stream to your receiver with one digital cable.

You wouldn't have to connect / disconnect everything when you wanted to switch, could have both playing at once, and you'd only have to run a single line from the computer to the receiver.

You would be able to use the Onkyo's bass management on the DD/DTS stream as well as distance settings, level controls, etc.

 

[arredondo]

Hmmm, I'm hearing Xplosion has some game compatability problems (NewEgg comment section). Costs $90 too.

Here is some info on the Audigy bass redirect and crossover options:

Bass Redirect.
Tick this option to enable the redirection of Bass content to a Subwoofer which requires a separate input, e.g. Videologic DigiTheatre LC, otherwise you will not be able to get any Subwoofer output on such systems (Bar that of the LFE channel in AC-3/DTS & such). On other Speaker systems you can leave this Unticked without issue (As they can create their own Subwoofer content using on-board bass management), though should you have no Subwoofer output currently then try enabling this to see if it fixes your problem. It is also recommended that you Untick this setting during Dolby Digital/DTS playback as that already contains a LFE channel. This feature can be customized further using the Crossover Frequency option beneath.

Crossover Frequency.
With Bass Redirect enabled this option becomes available. Using this slider bar you can adjust the crossover frequency (10 ? 200Hz), beneath which, such low frequencies will be directed to the Subwoofer. Increasing this value will result in a stronger bass output from the Subwoofer & vice versa. NOTE ? Be sure to check your subwoofer & satellites specifications to see what frequencies they can handle also so that you don?t set this too low or too high.

Does that help?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: arredondo
Hmmm, I'm hearing Xplosion has some game compatability problems (NewEgg comment section). Costs $90 too.

Here is some info on the Audigy bass redirect and crossover options:

Bass Redirect.
Tick this option to enable the redirection of Bass content to a Subwoofer which requires a separate input, e.g. Videologic DigiTheatre LC, otherwise you will not be able to get any Subwoofer output on such systems (Bar that of the LFE channel in AC-3/DTS & such). On other Speaker systems you can leave this Unticked without issue (As they can create their own Subwoofer content using on-board bass management), though should you have no Subwoofer output currently then try enabling this to see if it fixes your problem. It is also recommended that you Untick this setting during Dolby Digital/DTS playback as that already contains a LFE channel. This feature can be customized further using the Crossover Frequency option beneath.

Crossover Frequency.
With Bass Redirect enabled this option becomes available. Using this slider bar you can adjust the crossover frequency (10 ? 200Hz), beneath which, such low frequencies will be directed to the Subwoofer. Increasing this value will result in a stronger bass output from the Subwoofer & vice versa. NOTE ? Be sure to check your subwoofer & satellites specifications to see what frequencies they can handle also so that you don?t set this too low or too high.

Does that help?

I've heard from different people that it does or does not work. Some people have experienced that even if the crossover setting does work that bass output is almost non-existent.

I haven't had a creative card in years so I have not experienced this firsthand. I do know that in theory, those settings should be all you need to get everything working. Whether or not this will work in reality if a different question.

Do you have those same controls on your own control panel too?

 

[arredondo]

Yeah, it's on the panel. BTW, here is a pic showing the back of my audio card:

http://images10.newegg.com/New...mage/29-102-002-02.jpg

By the color, which one is for bass-out once I have the adapter attached? My guess is green since that's the color of my Onkyo 604 subwoofer "in" port.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: arredondo
Yeah, it's on the panel. BTW, here is a pic showing the back of my audio card:

http://images10.newegg.com/New...mage/29-102-002-02.jpg

By the color, which one is for bass-out once I have the adapter attached? My guess is green since that's the color of my Onkyo 604 subwoofer "in" port.

Standard coloring is
Green - FL/FR
Black - SL/SR
Orange - Subwoofer/Center

If you get adapters with white/red coloring, the L is white and R is red for the Green and Black ones.

With the Orange, you may need to go back and forth with the center/sub on the receiver end to make sure you don't have it reversed. I don't know off the top of my head which one is which for standard connections.

 

[arredondo]

Cool. I'm off to get the wires and run some errands... I'll post here within two hours or so to let you know how it all worked out. Thanks again.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: arredondo
Cool. I'm off to get the wires and run some errands... I'll post here within two hours or so to let you know how it all worked out. Thanks again.

Make sure you don't pay too much for all this cabling.

 

[arredondo]

For the price, I decided to get them from Monoprice.Other places want to rob you blind, lol. Fortunately Monoprice is 30 minutes from me, so i won't even have to have them ship it. I'll have to wait until Monday to pick it up since will call ordering closes in the morning for the day.

 

[montypythizzle]

Originally posted by: arredondo
For the price, I decided to get them from Monoprice.Other places want to rob you blind, lol. Fortunately Monoprice is 30 minutes from me, so i won't even have to have them ship it. I'll have to wait until Monday to pick it up since will call ordering closes in the morning for the day.

Do they have like a retail outlet?

 

[arredondo]

I'm just fortunate to live in So. Cali (our women and weather aren't bad either!). Newegg, mWave, Monoprice are all 30 minutes away so if they have a will call counter I can place a order online and pick it up myself. Newegg doesn't have one unfortunately.

Viewsonic is out here too, which was great when I needed my 22" P220F monitor repaired (under warranty). No shipping issues or delays in having it trucked back and forth. I took it to them, they fixed it and I picked it up.

By the way, here's what I'm ordering if it is indeed correct:

3x 3.5mm Stereo Plug/2 RCA Jack cable - 6 inches: $3.45
3x PREMIUM 2 RCA Plug/2 RCA Plug M/M 22AWG Cable - 50ft: $32.28

So about $35 total before tax for three cables and adapters. Some places out here wanted $100+ for EACH 50 ft. stereo RCA cable. Long live Monoprice!