Raph's Website » HDMI, DVI, 360, 8300HD

HDMI, DVI, 360, 8300HD

April 20th, 2006 (Visited 9510 times) Tags:

Ever since the 360 arrived, I’ve had a problem: one too many devices outputting component signals. But now I have it working in such a way that I don’t have to switch cabling in the back, which is what I’ve been doing for the last month.

Devices:

Explorer 8300HD DVR/cable box
Sony DVD changer
Sony VCR (not that we use it for anything anymore)
Sony CD changer
Sony dual-desk cassette player
Sony receiver with 4 video ins and 4 audio ins
XBox 360
PC running MAME, Atari 8-bit emulator, and a music collection
Dreamcast
Playstation 2
Gamecube
XBox
Samsung 50″ widescreen DLP

I had put the PC running in via DVI, cable and DVD running in via component, VCR on RCA jacks, and all the game machines on an S-video switcher. The audio, in every case, runs to the surround sound system, but we only have one digital audio in on that (it’s old), so we use it for the DVD player since that’s the most likely case to want it. Everything else just runs stereo.

Now, I have it set up this way:

The VCR goes in on regular RCA video. Unchanged. I don’t think we are set up to record video on the VCR anymore, but who cares?

The PC goes in on the regular PC monitor jack — the picture is indistinguishable from the DVI output from the video card anyway, because DLPs aren’t the sharpest for text anyhow. This frees up the DVI jack. The audio for the PC currently runs into the receiver directly.

The cable box goes into an HDMI to DVI converter, and then in via DVI. The sound was already running separately into the receiver, so the lack of an audio signal on the DVI cable is no worry. The TV does have an HDMI input, and I could have gone HDMI straight through, but I already had a DVI cable, and Circuit City wanted a minimum of $130 for an HDMI cable. Ugh. I am sure I can find them on the net for more like $50, but the adapter was only $34.99 and the picture looks great at 1080i, so…

This frees up a component input for the 360’s video signal, which I run at 1080i.

PS2, GC, DC, XB, and the 360’s audio all run into a 5 jack S-Video switcher. I have the S-video cables for all of those consoles, so the S-video signal then runs into the TV and the audio to the receiver.

I also now have the Atari 8-bit emu running as a bootable Dreamcast disc, so that’s easier to get to. In fact, I have a bootable M.U.L.E. disc configured for four players. Far more playable than using the PC to run the emulator… and playing M.U.L.E. on a 50 inch widescreen with controllers from a few feet away is definitely the way to go!

CD and cassette (yes, we still have 500 cassettes we occasionally listen to, many of which are obscure singer-songwriters unavailable on CD) run into the remaining audio jacks on the receiver.

Now, no more cable swapping. And I can hold out hope that the PS3 will have an HDMI output, so there I have room to grow.

But when the Revolution comes out, I think I’m screwed.

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Faith wrote on April 21st, 2006 at 3:25 am:

[...] Comments [...]

Christmas tree wrote on April 28th, 2006 at 5:28 am:

Original post:HDMI, DVI, 360, 8300HD by at Google Blog Search: dvi to hdmi adapter Pages: Start

Excavius said on April 21st, 2006 at 12:53 am:

Time to build a new Yoshis Box. haha

Blake said on April 21st, 2006 at 9:23 am:

Color this geek jealous. Nice setup!

Ian Bogost said on April 21st, 2006 at 9:28 am:

Yeah, this is a huge problem. I ended up buying the HDMI cable for the DVR/Cable box (and you’re right, it was $50 or less online), but I’m running GC, PS2, XB, and 360 through component video to a component switcher. That cost me around $100, but it was worth it, because it also switches optical audio. And it also accepts S-video and composite video, I have 3 or 4 more ports available on the switch, so I use those for the NES, TurboGrafx, and N64. Then the trick is to run both the the component AND the composite out to separate video in ports on the tv. I just ran the DVD player straight to the TV via another component in. I feel a little bitter that Sony only provided two component inputs on the TV. So, I can use all my devices by changing between three video inputs on the TV remote, two on the receiver, and one of the buttons on the switch.

Then I also ran a coax out from the TV antenna input, to a $3 adapter to an RF cable. I leave that dangling next to the TV and plug in the Atari 2600 and Intellivision only when I need them. We got a VCS S-video mod for the experimental game lab at Tech, and I suppose I could do that, but I’d run out of ports on the switch.

Wudu said on April 21st, 2006 at 5:42 pm:

Never mind. What Ian said.

Raph said on April 21st, 2006 at 8:16 pm:

I only have some of those others on emus, not the actual hardware, so I don’t have quite the need for jacks that you do, Ian.

The 2600 is in the closet. Heck, the actual Atari 8-bit is in the closet too.