2014-01-24, 21:02
A recent incident involving a small child means that I'm having to replace the telly... *sigh*
So a shiny new Samsung UE40F5000 is arriving shortly, and it occurs to me that it might be a good time to think about going surround sound, while I'm at it.
XBMC is running on a reasonably swift Intel i5 based computer with 8gb RAM and an AMD4800 gpu and will connect to the TV by HDMI. The motherboard has a RealtekALC889 HD 7.1 sound chip.
Up to now, I've been happy with the stereo sound from the old telly, but it'd be nice to be able to benefit from the surround sound on my DVDs, recorded shows, and other video files. I do some gaming on the PC, too, and there's a Sony BluRay player knocking about too (possibly to be replaced with a BluRay drive in the PC one day...)
From a position of almost total ignorance, it seems to me that I have two options: HDMI out to a Home Cinema AV receiver, or some computer multimedia 5.1 speakers running of the PC's sound card. I'm guessing XBMC would support both methods?
I'm on a tight budget, and would probably rather wait for something reasonable, than shell out for something totally rubbish.
The AV reciever route seems expensive (for example a Yamaha RX-V475 and a set of Yamaha NS-P40 speakers will set me back about 500€) but I'm guessing that it'd be highher quality and would leave room for expansion.
The Multimedia Speakers route seems significantly cheaper (Logitech Z506 5.1 speaker system is about 75€, or Hercules XPS 5.1 70 Slim is 130€), but I guess would be of lesser quality and harder to route the BluRay?
Has anyone gone down the latter route happily?
Would I be much better off waiting for a 'proper' AV reciever?
Any other advice?
So a shiny new Samsung UE40F5000 is arriving shortly, and it occurs to me that it might be a good time to think about going surround sound, while I'm at it.
XBMC is running on a reasonably swift Intel i5 based computer with 8gb RAM and an AMD4800 gpu and will connect to the TV by HDMI. The motherboard has a RealtekALC889 HD 7.1 sound chip.
Up to now, I've been happy with the stereo sound from the old telly, but it'd be nice to be able to benefit from the surround sound on my DVDs, recorded shows, and other video files. I do some gaming on the PC, too, and there's a Sony BluRay player knocking about too (possibly to be replaced with a BluRay drive in the PC one day...)
From a position of almost total ignorance, it seems to me that I have two options: HDMI out to a Home Cinema AV receiver, or some computer multimedia 5.1 speakers running of the PC's sound card. I'm guessing XBMC would support both methods?
I'm on a tight budget, and would probably rather wait for something reasonable, than shell out for something totally rubbish.
The AV reciever route seems expensive (for example a Yamaha RX-V475 and a set of Yamaha NS-P40 speakers will set me back about 500€) but I'm guessing that it'd be highher quality and would leave room for expansion.
The Multimedia Speakers route seems significantly cheaper (Logitech Z506 5.1 speaker system is about 75€, or Hercules XPS 5.1 70 Slim is 130€), but I guess would be of lesser quality and harder to route the BluRay?
Has anyone gone down the latter route happily?
Would I be much better off waiting for a 'proper' AV reciever?
Any other advice?