Samsung HT-BD2R & dvd(divx) player
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New member Username: DimisPost Number: 1 Registered: Jul-08 | Hi everyone  I just bought a samsung HT-BD2R 7.1 home cinema in pair with a samsung 37" LE37A656A1F TV to install in my new appartment. The problem is tho that the blu ray player seems to not be able to play any kind of dvix/xvid whatsoever, altho i am not sure if a future firmware upgrade will address this problem. So i decided to buy a quite cheap classic dvd player with divx capabilities to connect to the whole system. ( philips dvp-5980 ). Now here comes the problem, and since i m no expert i would appreciate some help here. HT-BD2R will be connected to the HDTV with the HDMI cables, thats simple :P , now to the tough part.... connecting the dvd player to both .... It seems that the philips dvd player only has hdmi (audio/video) and coaxial (audio) output (not counting the rca and component connections which i was told they are inferior to hdmi and coaxial/optical). Now the samsung BD player has only 1 Hdmi which is output (not input) and when it comes to sound it has 2 optical digital audio in and more specifically one of them is called "anynet". What would be the best way to connect all three in order to hear the sound of the divx player (philips 5980) throught the 7.1 speakers in the best possible quality?. One thought i made was connecting the HDMI out of the philips directly to the HDTV(for video), and the coaxial audio to the HT-BD2R in the optical digital in somehow (with a converter?)(and would such a converter mean quality loss?). Anyways i hope you didnt get tired of reading all this, but any help would be appreciated :D thanks in advance, |
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Silver Member Username: CclashhPost Number: 325 Registered: Jan-08 | The only way that this can be done is to connect both the blu-ray player/surround system and the phillips dvd directly to the TV via HDMI. The sound from the blu-ray will come from the speakers without any further setup as the blu-ray and surround sound are one unit. To get discrete surround sound from the phillips DVD from the surround sound (7.1) you will have to convert the digital coax to optical and connect it to one of the optical inputs on the suround sound system -see below for an example of a device that will do this. Otherwise there seems to be an aux input that is most likely analog that you could use but you will not get true surround this way. http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10423&cs_id=1042302 &p_id=2947&seq=1&format=2 |
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New member Username: DimisPost Number: 2 Registered: Jul-08 | hi again and thanks for the reply :D this converter you mentioned seems like it would do the trick altho i couldnt find it in my home country, tho i found something that looks similar. http://www.emimikos.gr/shop/product.php?productid=17392&cat=0&page=1 but still, since i am very novice to optical audio and such i still have some questions :/ a lot of them actually.... my main problem is that i still dont know the exact type of jacks my devices have and more specificaly, since i also need to connect my pc to the home theater system, situation gets tougher :P first of all, this is how my pc looks from the behind  according to the manual, the optical out is a S/PDIF out port (optical)  this is the back of the HT with the optical outs listed as EXTERNAL DIGITAL OPTICAL INPUT JACKS(OPTICAL1, OPTICAL2) in the manual. Is it possible for you guys to recognize the exact type of these cables... toslink, s/pdif etc.. i m abit confused here :/ Now to the bigger problem that occured.... The distance perimetricaly wall to wall from the pc to the HDTV/HT is about 20 meters (65 feet) i will be using legrand plastic canals throughout the whole room to patch in all the cables i ll be using. I red about signal loss, interference and such problems .... would an hdmi repeater be a good solution? but then again, what about the optical? i would gladly appreciate any help given here with ideas and solutions. also, the PCs hdmi out will be through DVI-I  (or s-video to hdmi? ... i wonder) but anyways i think both ports, DVI-I and s-video are HDCP enabled. so i might need? - hdmi to hdmi (1.3) 20m cable? or 10 &10m with repeater? - or a hdmi to cat5e converter? (i even red about that somewhere...) but then again, what about the optical audio? - 20 meter optical cable of which type? or something else? - and surely a DVI-I to HDMI converter for sure... anyways, i m sorry for the lenght of my post, i once again thanks again for reading this, any kind of help and advice would be welcome. PS. through the legrand canals i ll be patching the 7.1 speaker cables, a sattelite cable, and my pcs adsl cat6e cable to the router, since none of them has electrical signal i wonder how it ll be on interferences etc... |
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Silver Member Username: CclashhPost Number: 327 Registered: Jan-08 | Optical/Toslink cables are just that and are good for cable runs you propose. There are no cables that you could confuse an optical cable for. As for the HDMI cable length. Because you exceed 50 feet you are correct in thinking that this will require more than your average hdmi cable. The below is an example of a cable that will do this. It has an equalizer and a booster that compensates for the long cable length. The method used for the long hdmi cable run is ultimately up to you but for a clean setup I would recommend a cable with the needed electronics integrated into the cable itself. I am sure that with a little research on google you will find a dvi to hdmi cable that suits your needs. http://www.qvc.com/qic/qvcapp.aspx/view.2/app.detail/params.aol_refer.false.tpl. detail.msn_refer.false.item.E191385.ref.GBA?cm_ven=GOOGLEBASE&cm_cat=Electronics &cm_pla=Home%20Audio&cm_ite=E191385 Bearing in mind that you have not really made it clear what you attempt to accomplish by integrating you pc into this the truth is I would not even attempt to integrate the pc the way you propose (meaning I would not use a 20 meter long dvi to hdmi cable) I would use windows media center -see below link. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/mediacenter/default.mspx To connect the pc to your home theater I would use one of the below devices. http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayou t&cid=1175243415897&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper&lid=1589733147B04 http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayou t&cid=1175243415936&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper&lid=1593633147B01 If you do not have a windows vista machine I would upgrade the one you have or conside a new one with vista. Lemme know if I have overlooked one of your questions..... |
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New member Username: DimisPost Number: 3 Registered: Jul-08 | thx again for the reply, he truth is i got a little dissapointed with the lack of compatibility the blu-ray player has (not to mention the quite non existant disks in my region as we speak, cant find more than 30 titles to rent in local dvd clubs and yet i didnt see one with 7.1 audio still. lso the dvd player cant play HD content... So i thought to take advantage of the PC which can reproduce 'anything' .mkv .H264 etc...but i dont think i can place it any nearer to the HDTV since its a living room and it would ruin the decoration :p he (hardware) media player idea looks brilliant tho , i red about a tvix 6500a and a pop corn earlier today , i ll also check your links and try to compare em as fast as my little nokia allows me :d (writting from a cellphone atm) btw pc is running vista and has quite good specs (quad core,4gigs and nvidia 9800gtx) |
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New member Username: DimisPost Number: 4 Registered: Jul-08 | sadly my s60 browser cant open the microsoft link, but the linksys ones gave me a picture of what you meant. I too use a wifi class N router and sometimes signal is lost within 15 meters of movement n my n95 if i close a door or cross a wall :p a mini computer like tvix 6500a is like a dvd player that can play all formats and connects via lan & usb to the pc and play from there or have the files copied over to its internal hdd.. And supports hdmi and optical out.. oth that and the linksys comb seem more logical solutions than huge cables |
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Silver Member Username: CclashhPost Number: 328 Registered: Jan-08 | Judging from the specs on your pc I would definitely go with a linksys media center extender. It would cost about twice (maybe less) what you would end up paying for cables and would give you a lot more functionality as well as simplicity. I do not understand the problems you are having examining the media center? One of the linksys media extenders has an upscaling dvd player as well. Trust me that setup would be really cool. I think you will be amazed at what you can do with it. |
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Silver Member Username: CclashhPost Number: 329 Registered: Jan-08 | Dimitris, What version of Vista is on that machine. Media center is on home premium and ultimate. |
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New member Username: DimisPost Number: 5 Registered: Jul-08 | sorry for the late reply but i was kinda busy setting up my new house :D and browsing from a symbian OS wont always work :P i m running vista home premium. i checked the links about media center and all, they look stylish to say at least, but i m not sure how many video types windows media center supports.... after a quick look the default file types for videos are : Windows Media file .wm and .asf Windows Media Video file .wmv Windows video file .avi Microsoft Recorded TV Show file .dvr-ms Movie file .mpeg, .mpg, .mpe, .m1v, .mp2, and .mpv2 nothing mentioned about dvix, xvid, mkv etc... same goes for the linksys media extender, it can play: Video from Disc: DVD/MPEG2 Video from Vista PC: MPEG-1 MPEG-2 WMV9 (Standard and High Definition) VC-1 Advanced Profile 4.0 at default i guess, always having in mind a firmware upgrade that can improve things abit. i ve red about other media players definitely going for 1080p and supporting every known video format out there.. but they could cost twice as the linksys extender. |
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Silver Member Username: CclashhPost Number: 333 Registered: Jan-08 | I thought that the Phillips DVD player you bought supported the formats that you want?? Maybe I am confused but I thought that was the whole idea behind buying it. If this is your only concern I would suggest just buying a player that will do what you want and maybe considering what is more important supporting legacy formats or moving on to this century Regardless I still think the media center idea is a good one and would be a nice addition to your setup..... |
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New member Username: DimisPost Number: 6 Registered: Jul-08 | true, the philips dvd can play many codecs, but i cant shrink a 15 or 20 gig .mkv into a dvd-r :P about legacy formats and moving on to this century, that reminds me some (maybe alot :P ) years back when i out of the blue bought a sony 5.1 AV and a sony 1bit DVD player (this one was almost the size of a VCR player, talking about ancient history :P ) and brought em to my parents house. all in all it seemed incredible ... altho after awhile i realised that it couldnt even reproduce a cd-r not to mention a dvd-r dvd+r :P it would only accept original dvds/cds :D well i had moved on into the century replacing a VCR with a 5.1 & a DVD player... but then again i rushed abit. somehow i rushed again now abit with all the excitement of setting up my new appartment fast etc. i could have waited abit and buy a strong AV setup, the Blue Ray could wait, and i could buy a newer model in the future that would support every known video file that i would burn into a BD-R, i dunno :P it would save us some trouble both mine and everyones reading this :D |
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