Onkyo home theater not able to do what I expected?

UncleSporky

I recently bought an Onkyo HT-S3200 home theater in a box. So far I have listed to the radio and heard game audio through it (but not video).

I thought I had a decent understanding of inputs and outputs but I cannot get any video to pass through this thing. Essentially, what I want to do is plug everything into the receiver, and have one HDMI out going to the TV, and one audio in coming from the TV. However, I was looking in the manual and saw this:

The AV receiver does not convert between formats, so if a video source component is connected to a component video input, your TV must be connected to the component video output.

Does that mean what I think it means? I've got 4 game systems from different eras, a DVD player, and possibly a computer I want to hook up. I have to run every format of cable from the equipment to the receiver, and then from the receiver to the TV?

Is there something I can buy that will do what I want it to do?

Raynaga

That is how it reads. If your receiver supports it you should just have the TV set to HDMI 1 (for example) and then just adjust the input selection on the receiver to whatever component you want. If that's what you're doing and it doesn't work, then that combined with that manual excerpt would lead me to believe that the receiver you have doesn't do video processing, just pass-through.

I'm not familiar with that model though, so this is an educated guess at best.

MushroomStick

The product page you linked to clearly states pass-through.

useless4

Yea , what you have requires a cable of each type to go to the tv... it won't spit s-video thru hdmi for example.

What you want comes with a surprisingly large price tag.

You want something like this:
Gefen Scaler

Here is someone talking about an Onkyo that does what you want:
OnkyoTXSR674

Raynaga

FYI video processing is one of the more expensive features to get in a receiver. My Sony does it, but it was an extremely expensive unit when I initially purchased it.

mcdermott

Yeah, what you're asking is generally going to take you up at least one, if not two, notches in price. You're asking for a fair amount of decoding and encoding circuitry that most users simply don't want or need.

Not that I don't understand the desire, of course. But most people will just run 1xComponent, 1xComposite, and 1XHDMI to their TV and be happy with it (especially combined with a Harmony remote, which also offers other benefits).

Is the issue that you're running video cables long-distance through a wall, or that you just want to eliminate cable clutter behind your entertainment center? Or just the complexity of switching between inputs on the TV constantly?


Lastly, if your plan is to run audio back from the TV to the receiver for all your devices (not just OTA television) then be careful...many/most, due to HDCP standards, will downmix your audio from 5.1/7.1 multichannel digital (AC3/DTS/whatever) to 2.0 PCM (still digital, but only in stereo), leaving you with Dolby Pro Logic surround (if you're lucky). If your receiver can pull off the audio stream from the HDMI line, and process it directly, do that. Otherwise make sure you run a separate digital line (optical or RCA, makes no difference) from each device to the receiver.

It just sounded like this was what you were doing, so I wanted to make sure you looked into it.

UncleSporky

MushroomStick wrote: »

The product page you linked to clearly states pass-through.

Hmm. If what everyone else is saying is right though, it must mean HDMI pass-thru, and no other formats? It does have 2 HDMI in and one out...

EDIT: I understand, "pass-thru" means no conversion. Bleh.

UncleSporky

mcdermott wrote: »

Is the issue that you're running video cables long-distance through a wall, or that you just want to eliminate cable clutter behind your entertainment center? Or just the complexity of switching between inputs on the TV constantly?

The issue is that I assumed that was what the receiver was for, you plug everything into it and it sends it all where it's supposed to go through one pipe. I just didn't pay enough attention. To be honest it's not that big a deal running extra cables, I just wondered if it really could do what I wanted and I didn't hook it up right.

Lastly, if your plan is to run audio back from the TV to the receiver for all your devices (not just OTA television) then be careful...many/most, due to HDCP standards, will downmix your audio from 5.1/7.1 multichannel digital (AC3/DTS/whatever) to 2.0 PCM (still digital, but only in stereo), leaving you with Dolby Pro Logic surround (if you're lucky). If your receiver can pull off the audio stream from the HDMI line, and process it directly, do that. Otherwise make sure you run a separate digital line (optical or RCA, makes no difference) from each device to the receiver.

It just sounded like this was what you were doing, so I wanted to make sure you looked into it.

I guess now I'm planning on running video and audio from the devices in whatever their cable format is to the receiver, and then run that same cable format from the receiver to the TV. The audio from the TV to the receiver is just for over the air TV.

Which brings me to another question I forgot to ask earlier: my TV has two audio outs, digital coax and RCA. I tried to run RCA from the TV to the receiver's various RCA inputs, but I never got over the air audio on the speaker system. Not sure what I'm doing wrong there. The receiver does have inputs specifically for the TV, but I tried DVD and other jacks and nothing worked.

MushroomStick

You might have to change a setting on the tv to get it to send an audio signal out.

Improvolone

Might be a setting in your TV menu

UncleSporky

I didn't see anything, it doesn't have a very robust set of options, but I'll look again.

illig

you bought an inexpensive receiver... that model only has HDMI pass through, so it basically doesn't touch the signal... it'll output HDMI if you input HDMI... if you input Component/composite, that's what it'll output

you need to get an upconverting receiver if you want to get a single HDMI out

Scrublet

Raynaga wrote: »

FYI video processing is one of the more expensive features to get in a receiver. My Sony does it, but it was an extremely expensive unit when I initially purchased it.

Depends what you mean by video processing. What the OP wanted with HDMI switching is actually pretty cheap. This Onkyo receiver does it, and that $400 price is not uncommon at all on Newegg. Now if you start talking about good upconverting (like not using the Faroudja crap), that will start to set a price floor at $800ish.

Raynaga

Scrublet wrote: »

Raynaga wrote: »

FYI video processing is one of the more expensive features to get in a receiver. My Sony does it, but it was an extremely expensive unit when I initially purchased it.

Depends what you mean by video processing. What the OP wanted with HDMI switching is actually pretty cheap. This Onkyo receiver does it, and that $400 price is not uncommon at all on Newegg. Now if you start talking about good upconverting (like not using the Faroudja crap), that will start to set a price floor at $800ish.

I meant the bolded. Its semantics, but to me the first part of your post is just a more capable version of pass-through.