What is the best way of hooking up the following...

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › What is the best way of hooking up the following...

atk1

60 posts

Master Geek

#16793 28-Oct-2007 20:44

Please advise me of the best way to hook up the following equipment below including cables (types/brands?)
1. Panasonic 160 GB Hard Drive DVD Recorder DMR-EH57GN-K
2. Panasonic 42" High Definition Plasma TV TH-42PV70AZ
3. Sky Digital
4. Shuttle PC with DVI, VGA & Optical outputs
5. Normal aerial & Satellite Dish
on the way - still deciding on which home theatre (probably the Panasonic 1000W Home Theatre System SC-PT550GN-K) and maybe a freeview reciever in the bedroom)

I want to be able to...
...Watch and record sky in its best quality.
...Use the Plasma as a 2nd monitor for my PC
...Have the option of using my PC monitor which is a Samsung Sync Master LCD/TV as a 2nd TV option to watch or view a different channel

Are hdmi splitters good? Do they lose any quality? Should I use gold cables? I know the cables going to the Plasma which is wall mounted run past some power cables in the wall if that matters?
Cheers guys

stuzzo

534 posts

Ultimate Geek

#92800 28-Oct-2007 21:54

Re: HDMI Splitters. I have one and it works well, there is no loss in signal quality and nor should there be as it is simply sending the same copy of a digital signal to 2 locations.

I have heard of compatibility problems when the output of a splitter is sent into an av receiver due to different implementations of the repeater bit so might pay to buy from somewhere you can return it easily.

There is the possibility ( as they contain microchips) that a splitter you buy now might not cope with the future bandwidth requirements of data and equipment eg deep colour etc. They normally say which HDMI version they support.

I wouldn't spend too much money on your cables in general as long as they are suitable for the job, your coax cable should be rated for digital/satelite.

cyril7

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#92837 29-Oct-2007 08:49

Lots of questions, and I could go into lots of answers so will concentrate on a couple fist up.

If recording programs off sky and doing so in the highest quality is important then do yourself a favour and get MySky, it will provide the best recording you can get as it streams in inbound data stream direct to the disc. Only negative of MySky is that you cannot put the recordings on tape/disc without going via the analog output, ie you cannot simply pickup the files. It cost $600 and concidering that you never own it but never have to worry about the cost of having it servied and will always have it upgraded for that one off fee then its great. Also its ease of use (due to the integration with EPG) compared to normal DVR's cannot be compared But as you have bought a 160Gig DVR I guess you wont do that.

The best way of connecting Sky to your display is via Component, you will need a SCART to Component cable (Jaycar WQ7255) is perfectly fine for the job at around $50. Depending on which Sky box you have you may be able to use S-Video from the VCR SCART to feed the DVR, but failing that you may have to revert to composite. That MySky sounds even better.

Gold connectors in my view look pretty, but dont provide any real tangible benifits, especially if you are feeding them into a sounds system such as the viera.

You say Normal Aerial and Sky Dish, I presume you want to know the best way to wire them, well you should use RG6, duobond is fine, it should have Sky Approved written on it. What antenna are you using, do you need an antenna why not just split the sat feed and spend the $200 on a FreeView/FTA STB. If you live in a metro area that will get DVB-T coverage then make sure you have a new or good condition UHF antenna wired with RG6 for a DVB-T HD capable STB.

There is a start

Cyril

sbiddle

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#92855 29-Oct-2007 10:23

atk1:
...Use the Plasma as a 2nd monitor for my PC
...Have the option of using my PC monitor which is a Samsung Sync Master LCD/TV as a 2nd TV option to watch or view a different channel

Most of the Sky questions are answered so I'll just answer these

To hook your PC up to the TV the simplest way is to use the VGA output. A 42" Plasma will typically have a native resolution of 1024x768. The other option is to use a DVI->HDMI converter but this will mean dealing with the overscan issues that will result and I'm un sure if you can get 1:1 pixel mapping over HDMI from one of these TV's which will result in blurry text.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by being able to watch or view a 2nd channel on the monitor but if you're planning on hooking two monitors up to the same PC as a dual screen and want to view different video content on both then you're going to face a bit of a stumbling block. This could be done but not easily.

atk1

60 posts

Master Geek

#93006 30-Oct-2007 07:46

Thanks...I will reply properly tonight when I have more time - off to work, cheers

atk1

60 posts

Master Geek

#93081 30-Oct-2007 20:11

Sweet... thanks guys, I will split the Sat feed & get the freeview box (what is a good one? trademe?). I will try vga to vga. I have been using dvi to hdmi and the picture is good but youre right as the text is blurry. I wont get MySky as I buy pay per view events and then burn them to disc. I will also do the scart to component thing from the Sky decoder to the Plasma. Shall I go Scart to component from the Sky decoder to the Harddrave recorder for best possible recording?
Cheers again