Receivers

All of the “all in one” home theater systems do not yet do HDMI pass-thru and switching. They just started to have HDMI out for DVD output to HDTV and that is pretty much it. Phillips HTS3555/37 is a good example – it has just HDMI out and COAX IN, no TOSLINK and no HDMI-In. Samsung HT-X40 on the other hand doesn’t have COAX but has TOSLINK in (Samsung speakers are ugly too). It is a bummer that “all in one” doesn’t have meaningful digital audio-in because without it they are no more then a fancy DVD player with HDMI out and bunch of speakers.

Real receivers for most part are still lacking HDMI switching. $180 SONY STR-DG510 being an exception having HDMI (2 in 1 out) and component (2 in 1 out) pass-thru, 2 TOSLINK 1 COAX. Prologic decoding should be manually switched – just like on my old SONY and since they don’t switch between Component and HDMI that means that things like Wii (component only) couldn’t be hooked up to LCD monitor thru receiver. Thus “real receivers” are a bit better but useless as well because they cannot handle anything but a computer hooked up to one HDMI and say HD-DVD player hooked to the other. Plus, HDMI pass-thru do not do any True-HD and such decoding, so today “real receivers” would be useless in the future – read should be replaced soon…

The bottom line is – there is no reason to buy new receiver now. Mac Mini would plug into living-room replacing DVD player outputting to old TV thru Video Adapter. In the game-room emachine will have neither TOSLINK, nor COAX, so it could plug into old stereo. I should start building up game-room only once I get the Mini but then it would work in the living-room. So I should start building up game-room only if I get other computer to drive 24” LCD, but until I get that computer I shouldn’t be buying the panel and may be by that time they release “all in one” receiver with both TOSLINK and COAX-in.