Hi folks! Not sure if this is the right forum for this but here it goes: I currently have a home theatre system, everything runs through my Denon receiver: VCR, DVD, etc. My problem is this: I download movies and can't stand watching them on the PC so I burn them and watch them via my system described above. Is there any way that I can get away from wasting burnt DVD's and watch the movies I downloaded from the computer by hooking it up to the system I have? If so, what is everything I need to do this? A guy at work mentioned that I would need something called Media Centre, a new remote, etc. Keep in mind I am a rookie at this kind of stuff so be gentle. LOL!
With new A/V equipment it's quite a bit easier as you can easily transmit the data through DVI/HDMI. With older machines that are using component, S/PDIF, and digital coax cables you'll need to buy adapters. If you have a newer TV but an older receiver you can always run the audio/video or both straight through the TV instead of going through the receiver if nothing else works. It'll help us if you tell us what connections you have on the back of your PC, TV, and receiver that we have to work with. As far as windows media centre goes it's not necessary. It's hand if you want remote control function of your PC but I just start up a movie on my PC with the mouse and then forget about it.
Basically I just want to know if its worth doing - right now I download the movies then burn them but I am going through alot of DVD-R. Thought I may go the route of either connecting the PC directly to the PC or using DVD-RW so I can re-burn and its not such a waste.
Do you have an HDTV? Do you have a free DVI port on the back of the PC? If the aswer is yes on both, then you can get a converter cable for cheap. It is not worth buying a new reciever to merge everything together.
I got a dell inspiron laptop with a vga output, and a crt rear projection tv with hdmi, s-video, and composite input. A regular vga to hdmi converter (about 140 bucks) does not work. I can't change my remote monitor resolutions enough to set them to my tv's native resolutions of 720p or 1080i, and the converter is not a scaler. Do I need to spend the extra money for a 250 dollar scaler that claims to find my tv's native resolution and convert the signal. Can I expect a reasonable resolution like 720p.
