Hi, This may be quite a long thread but please bear with me. I'd like to hear the opinions of you on the forum who I am sure have ALOT more experience then me, and of course learn some new things in the process.
Basically, I am looking at changing around a ton of things within my AV setup at home for a few reasons (which will makes sense by the bottom of the thread I hope
). So first of all I need to show you what equipment I have and the various connections:
Equipment
Equipment on order
Now, currently my PC, Xbox and projector are sitting against the back wall of my lounge. My projector projects the image onto the front wall and the HT is setup also on the front wall. My Xbox and PC are connected to the Amp with 10 metre fibre optic cables. My PC is connected to the projector thru a DVI cable. My Xbox connects to the projector with an HDMI cable.
I play quite a bit of games on the PC, and I'm getting irritated with a few things about my sound:
1. The front speakers are on the wall behind me so 5 point sound in the games is a bit lost on me.
2. Because there isn't a way to carry full digital 5.1 audio signal to the amp on 1 cable (unless of course the game has Dolby decoding) then I'm only getting stereo sound anyway.
So, there are a few things I want to do.
1. Move my PC to the front of the room (and the Xbox)
2. Roof mount my projector
3. Put in the HDMI switcher and connect my PC and Xbox to the switcher.
4. Run 1 good long HDMI cable to the projector from the switcher so that I dont need a zillion crazy long and expensive cables connecting everything
Does anyone see any potential problems or reservations with what I want to do above?
And then a few questions from my side:
1. How can I get full 5.1 (or 6.1) sound from my PC to my amp without using analogue cables? Reason being is that I have ALOT of electronics and cables behind my PC, amp, Xbox, DSTV, Screen, DVD, 2 subs, router, ADSL, etc etc etc and I think this could potentially add alot of interference. Also, if I have anaolgue input then there is a slight "hiss" from the speakers all the time. It's not huge but enough for me to notice. Of course, this is also because I leave my amp on about 80% volume and then control the volume from my X-Fi or Keyboard on my PC.
2. Am I going to notice and signal loss by using a HDMI switcher on my video signal?
3. How big a difference does a Projector screen make? I wanted to order a projector screen as well but the biggest size I could find was only 125 inches. My picture is quite a bit bigger then that.
4. For power, because Nigeria has insane amounts of power surges and power failures (because state supplied power is prob only lasting about an hour a day) we are always switching between generator power and state power. For this all my electronics I have connected thru a voltage stabiliser and then into a UPS. I have 3 UPS's (which isn't enough for everything), I was wondering if I can daisy chain UPS's together so that the 3 UPS's can act as 1 large UPS instead? This could make things quite a bit easier for me.
Basically, I am looking at changing around a ton of things within my AV setup at home for a few reasons (which will makes sense by the bottom of the thread I hope
). So first of all I need to show you what equipment I have and the various connections:Equipment
- 1500W RMS Sony 6.2 Boxed Hifi (click here for link). I am really happy with the sounds from it, primarily because I either listen to Dance/Trance/Techno or Rock. The mid range for the drum kicks and rock is great, and I love the tight sounding bass of those 2 small 8" subs.
- I have a PC, video thru a Dell 3007 WFP (30 Inch LCD computer monitor - runs at 2560 x 1600 resolution)
- In the PC for my sound processing and output I have an external Creative X-Fi Elite Pro
- Xbox 360 Elite
- Optoma HD80 Full Hd projector
Equipment on order
- PTC Digiview 4 port HDMI switcher
- Liteon internal Blu Ray player for my PC
- Logitech Harmony 1000 Universal remote
- Pure AV HDMI cable
Now, currently my PC, Xbox and projector are sitting against the back wall of my lounge. My projector projects the image onto the front wall and the HT is setup also on the front wall. My Xbox and PC are connected to the Amp with 10 metre fibre optic cables. My PC is connected to the projector thru a DVI cable. My Xbox connects to the projector with an HDMI cable.
I play quite a bit of games on the PC, and I'm getting irritated with a few things about my sound:
1. The front speakers are on the wall behind me so 5 point sound in the games is a bit lost on me.
2. Because there isn't a way to carry full digital 5.1 audio signal to the amp on 1 cable (unless of course the game has Dolby decoding) then I'm only getting stereo sound anyway.
So, there are a few things I want to do.
1. Move my PC to the front of the room (and the Xbox)
2. Roof mount my projector
3. Put in the HDMI switcher and connect my PC and Xbox to the switcher.
4. Run 1 good long HDMI cable to the projector from the switcher so that I dont need a zillion crazy long and expensive cables connecting everything
Does anyone see any potential problems or reservations with what I want to do above?
And then a few questions from my side:
1. How can I get full 5.1 (or 6.1) sound from my PC to my amp without using analogue cables? Reason being is that I have ALOT of electronics and cables behind my PC, amp, Xbox, DSTV, Screen, DVD, 2 subs, router, ADSL, etc etc etc and I think this could potentially add alot of interference. Also, if I have anaolgue input then there is a slight "hiss" from the speakers all the time. It's not huge but enough for me to notice. Of course, this is also because I leave my amp on about 80% volume and then control the volume from my X-Fi or Keyboard on my PC.
2. Am I going to notice and signal loss by using a HDMI switcher on my video signal?
3. How big a difference does a Projector screen make? I wanted to order a projector screen as well but the biggest size I could find was only 125 inches. My picture is quite a bit bigger then that.
4. For power, because Nigeria has insane amounts of power surges and power failures (because state supplied power is prob only lasting about an hour a day) we are always switching between generator power and state power. For this all my electronics I have connected thru a voltage stabiliser and then into a UPS. I have 3 UPS's (which isn't enough for everything), I was wondering if I can daisy chain UPS's together so that the 3 UPS's can act as 1 large UPS instead? This could make things quite a bit easier for me.
