Home theater setup question

[Neost]

I'm looking at getting all new av equipment to go with a new TV purchase and was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction.

I just bought a Samsung HL-T6187S. That's the 61" Samsung DLP w/LED engine. It should be here by the end of next week. I have a 36" RCA LCD that I bought a few months back to get me by until I found the large screen tv i wanted.

What I would like to be able to do is have both TV's setup so that I could switch any source (xbox, satellite, ps2, wii, ps3) to either tv, depending on what I'm doing. I've looked for an A/V switch with hdmi capabilities and I guess I fail at google. I'm not finding anything that will allow me to have multiple sources to multiple outputs and be able to switch any source to any output.

Anyone know of a way to do this? I'll have the 36" hanging on the wall above the 61" on a stand and thought it would be great to be able to watch tv on the 61" and play games on the 36" or vice versa.

[Canelek]

I'll email my brother. He is a low-voltage contractor and deals with this kind of shit all the time.

[Fash]

A thought... for each device you have a cable splitter... you have TWO a/v switches and each source device would be hooked into both... that way you could watch any source on either or both monitors.

HDMI cable splitter for $12 from Dell

[Canelek]

Hey bro,

Looks like Gefen makes one that could work for him:

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=2758

Gefen - EXT-HDMI-642 $899.00

Not sure how well it works or if some handshake issues could result, but this would be their best bet.

Cheers,

[Fash]

Unfortunately, that $900 unit only outputs 1 source to both monitors.

[Kluden]

MONOPRICE is your friend!

http://www.monoprice.com/products/produ ... 1&format=2

That has a description that says the following:

Our newest solution provides the ability to switch between up to 4 source devices and independently out to two different destinations with support for HDMI 1.3a, high bandwidth throughput.

Sounds like it does just that, switch upto 4 sources independantly to 2 displays...atl east it sounds like what you want.

Its only $83.00 bucks too...so beats that 900 dollar monstrosity...PLUS, its remote controlled

[Canelek]

Unfortunately, that $900 unit only outputs 1 source to both monitors.

Oh. I didn't look--just copied what my brother emailed me. He must have been too busy to read the original email.

[Fash]

MONOPRICE is your friend!

http://www.monoprice.com/products/produ ... 1&format=2

Nice find... that does look good for his situation.

[Canelek]

Despite not presenting a viable solution with the multiple sources, my bro makes a very important point: HDMI can have handshake issues. sometimes they can be resolved by powering units on in right sequence (initially). Other times, you will not get a good or even legible signal.

[Neost]

thanks, guys. I would imagine I'll be going with the monoprice $83 solution:)

Although I will read up on the more expensive options, but as pointed out I'm not sure it'll do what I want.

[Boogahz]

It sounded like the $900 job was more designed for output to sound and video from several sources than two video.

[Kluden]

Another great resource is http://www.avsforum.com

Lots of extremely huge AV nerds there to satiate your needs.

[valryte]

Grats on the new TV. I have the same model. I'm not sure how much research you did on it, so I just wanted to prepare you. You may or may not see a purplish halo effect on some spots on the screen, usually somewhere in the middle. It's fixable, but they have to send someone in to replace some part inside which is reflective instead of black.

BTW, do you have a good AV receiver with HDMI inputs? Bad thing with the HDMI processing on the TV is that sometimes the audio it spits out is out of sync. Also it won't send out digital audio if the single comes through HDMI. So best thing to do is have a good receiver and connect everything to it and just send the video out to the TV. I still need to update my receiver. I've seen the out of sync issue with some shows, but I gets it really bad with shows I send out of my laptop which has an HDMI output.