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Hi All,

Been a while since I've posted. I'm working on the Star Wars prequel Trilogy DTS release which hopefully I'll have done soon.

I've upgraded my AV receiver to a Onkyo TX-NR 1008 which has all the new and old connections available. I was trying to work out if instead of using an SPDIF from the pc to receiver for audio and a VGA for video, if using a HDMI capable of transferring both could be the way to go. My issue is that I have the NVIDIA Ge-force 9400 GT graphics card with HDMI/VGA/DVI outputs. I have the HDMI going to the computer monitor and the vga going to the receiver. I'd like to keep the computer monitor connected via HDMI also. The Mother board also has HDMI output but it doesn't seem to be running. Is there a way to have both work simultaneously and out put audio to the receiver through one hdmi and audio to the desktop speakers through spdif which the motherboards sound card currently supports.

I had a spdif passive switcher...switching between my desktop speakers and old receiver but for some reason the new receiver isn't picking up on the digital signal through the switcher. I'm awaiting a powered spdif switcher I brought from ebay but thought I'd look at the options. Any tech wizards with knowledge about this some what convoluted question can help, that would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Focusing on just one part of your question and ignoring everything else.

Study of the Onkyo TX-NR 1008 manual suggests it is capable of duel HDMI output.


If you connect your TV to HDMI OUT MAIN and your Computer Monitor to HDMI OUT SUB you should get the same output on both. Might be a problem if the resolution is different.

This would appear offer solution to one of your problems. Of course if your intent was to have the computer monitor display without the Onkyo amplifier being on that would be a problem requiring a second video output from your computer. If this is your objective then that becomes mostly a computer issue requiring details of your Motherboard, Graphics Card and other details.

Many motherboards (circa 2008) were produced with a pretty weak on-board graphics featuring HDMI output. The truly sad thing about these boards is the on-board graphics were rarely up to the task of HTPC level delivery and were often not even HDCP capable. Thus most buyers added a dedicated video card. Trying to get the On-Board graphics to work in concert with the PCI (PCI-E x1, x8 or x16) graphics card isn't usually practical or possible. Sometimes such on-board graphics can be leveraged for PhysX but that's usually about it. Typically when the On-Board graphics are disabled the associated ports (HDMI) die with it and (short of rather dangerous work with a soldering iron) can't be reused.

I have tried driving two HDMI monitors from one PC HDMI output, using a an hdmi splitter and an hdmi switch on the TV to switch between PC and Wii. Resolution is definatly a problem. The PC detects the lower resolution of the TV even when the switch is connecting the TV to the Wii, and sets the resuloution accordingly.

Anyway to answer another issue if you get an HDMI audio card, such as the ASUS HDAV 1.3 Slim, you connect your graphics card HDMI to the audio card, and then from there to your HT. The audio card combines the Video and Audio onto one HDMI cable.

Thanks for the replies and suggestions in relation to this. Seems it may be a little difficult to setup the dual HDMI output from the PC. Good suggestion with the dual HDMI output from the receiver but that would need to be on all the time!! I'll probably stick to using the spdif output for the audio transfer, I'm just hoping the receiver will accept the electronic switcher.

Thanks again for the replies.

I have a 50' Toslink feeding the HT receiver from the pc via a Creative DTS-610 and curiously it only works on one of the receivers 2 toslink inputs.
Hmm. My graphics card has dual HDMI out (Sapphire Radeon HD 6850) and I've been curious about passing the sound via HDMI but alas no HDMI on either receiver.
If your other solution doesn't work out, maybe you could pony up for a different graphics card w/dual HDMI out? Or see if you can pick up a sound card like Zeeround suggested. (getting harder to find)

It's a pity that your Onkyo TX NR1008 receiver only features two optical inputs and no optical out.

I lament the loss of Mini Disk - not for the actual demise of MD technology but for the loss of the associated Optical Inputs and Outputs.

I daisy chain two receivers in my Home Theater by feeding the Mini Disk optical out to the MD input of the second receiver. Sadly this method limits my upgrade choices and interface options rather significantly. I came up with the method to avoid the vast expense of a high quality preamp - I felt then (and still do) that the role of the pre-amp can/will be displaced by the PC - it's just not quite there yet.

Does an HDMI cable give better quality compared to HD component cables? Does it make a big visual difference if i use an HDMI cable or an HD component cable? Or is it basically just the convenience of the HDMI cable being one, instead of the numerous colored cables?
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There is no doubt about it that HDMI gives a pure signal (or as close as possible with 2014 tech) whereas spam does not. spam is always effected by some sort of interference 100% of the time. As with anything corruption of anything on the planet can be good or bad depending on if your brain likes it that way.