Q) Can somebody help me out? I don't understand all the technical jargon I am reading about Blue-Ray vs HD DVD, but I need to make a decision on which to buy because soon I am purchasing a 52" Sharp LCD TV. If someone could just tell me in layman's terms the advantages and disadvantages of those two units, I would truly appreciate it.
A) It is very hard to recommend one over the other. Either one could end up the winner or loser in the format war. A good strategy as far as we are concerned is to rent movies rather than buy them and to try and pay the least possible amount of money on your player. HD DVD drives are generally less expensive, and shopping around or getting a used or open box player are options you may want to think about.
The Blu-Ray bargain is the Playstation 3. If you think you will be even remotely interested in games at all, it becomes that much better of an option. In any case it is a very good Blu-Ray player and is likely to hold its value since even if Blu-Ray were to lose the format war, it would still have value as a game console.
Besides keeping in mind the cost of the player, you need to see which titles are available and upcoming for each format to help decide which will give you the most satisfying content from your perspective. Some of us have gone "format neutral" by getting a PS3 as well as a Toshiba HD DVD player.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Thursday, January 11, 2007
CES 2007 Venetian High End Audio
The location of the high end audio gear is in a new location at the Venetian, which is a fantastic place, but we still missed the relaxing walk around Alexis Park Hotel and the easy walk to "The Show" (the "other" high end audio show) next door at the St Tropez.
We heard the Gradient Evidence Mk III speakers with Sonneteer transport and amplification first and the combination was wonderfully musical and refined. Highly recommended. In addition, the Sonneteer Sedley phono stage is available with a USB connection for backing up vinyl recordings to a computer. This is the highest quality way we have yet seen to record your records to your computer.
http://www.sonneteer.com
http://www.gradient.fi
We next got to listen to the Symposium Panorama Loudspeaker prototypes. These use planar dynamic ribbon mid/high drivers of very low mass, with a separate twin driver aperiodic folded transmission line bass enclosure. They are huge and a bit ungainly looking and may not pass the WAF test, they are truely something to listen to. They take detail to a new level well beyond what cone speakers can provide. The bass enclosures match incredibly well which is very hard to do with planars or electrostatics.
http://www.symposiumusa.com
Any chance possible to listen to the AvantGarde Acoustic Duo would be crazy to miss. These are not popular because they are beautiful and amazingly efficient, so that they can be driven by the most simple low wattage tube amps. They are popular because they sound so damn realistic. Presense is the definition of these speakers, as in the singer or instrument sounds like they are right there in front of you.
http://www.avantgarde-acoustic.com
Finally, we went to the McIntosh room. Everyone knows them for their incredible amplification and transports, but they do make loudspeakers as well. I believe what we saw and heard was the new version of their line source XRT2K speakers with redesigned woofers which we were told are a huge leap forward for the woofer design. All drivers are sized in order to properly disperse their entire frequency range, with 2" midranges and 3/4" tweeters (lots and lots of both). Well the truth is in the listening, and the results are spectacular. I cannot say I have ever heard bass of this quality and volume. The soundfield was also remarkable, particularly for a line source. Moving about the room you could still hear the far end speaker sound field properly located. Dynamics to die for and loud clear and totally musical, these things may make people forget that McIntosh makes amplifiers. Well, ok, that's a bit much. Check them out if you ever get the chance.
http://www.mcintoshlabs.com
The location of the high end audio gear is in a new location at the Venetian, which is a fantastic place, but we still missed the relaxing walk around Alexis Park Hotel and the easy walk to "The Show" (the "other" high end audio show) next door at the St Tropez.
We heard the Gradient Evidence Mk III speakers with Sonneteer transport and amplification first and the combination was wonderfully musical and refined. Highly recommended. In addition, the Sonneteer Sedley phono stage is available with a USB connection for backing up vinyl recordings to a computer. This is the highest quality way we have yet seen to record your records to your computer.
http://www.sonneteer.com
http://www.gradient.fi
We next got to listen to the Symposium Panorama Loudspeaker prototypes. These use planar dynamic ribbon mid/high drivers of very low mass, with a separate twin driver aperiodic folded transmission line bass enclosure. They are huge and a bit ungainly looking and may not pass the WAF test, they are truely something to listen to. They take detail to a new level well beyond what cone speakers can provide. The bass enclosures match incredibly well which is very hard to do with planars or electrostatics.
http://www.symposiumusa.com
Any chance possible to listen to the AvantGarde Acoustic Duo would be crazy to miss. These are not popular because they are beautiful and amazingly efficient, so that they can be driven by the most simple low wattage tube amps. They are popular because they sound so damn realistic. Presense is the definition of these speakers, as in the singer or instrument sounds like they are right there in front of you.
http://www.avantgarde-acoustic.com
Finally, we went to the McIntosh room. Everyone knows them for their incredible amplification and transports, but they do make loudspeakers as well. I believe what we saw and heard was the new version of their line source XRT2K speakers with redesigned woofers which we were told are a huge leap forward for the woofer design. All drivers are sized in order to properly disperse their entire frequency range, with 2" midranges and 3/4" tweeters (lots and lots of both). Well the truth is in the listening, and the results are spectacular. I cannot say I have ever heard bass of this quality and volume. The soundfield was also remarkable, particularly for a line source. Moving about the room you could still hear the far end speaker sound field properly located. Dynamics to die for and loud clear and totally musical, these things may make people forget that McIntosh makes amplifiers. Well, ok, that's a bit much. Check them out if you ever get the chance.
http://www.mcintoshlabs.com
CES 2007 International Hall
We didn't get many pictures at the International Hall, doing so requires long conversations and exchanges of business cards which can really make covering the hall take a long time. We prefer to try and snatch up the brochures of what looks interesting as we go by and run off before they can catch us. It's great execise and really speeds things up. Besides, to be honest we wanted to get to the Venetian so we could listen to some awesome sound systems.
HDMI was very hot this year, with many vendors for cables, switchers and distribution amps. Memory card picture frames were also everywhere at CES this year, so much so that you may soon see them for sale in 7/11.
Genmore International Showed off some real eye candy cables.
Carve had the usual computer cables, adapters and KVM stuff, but what really stood out was their selection of small USB hubs. Small is in with USB hubs, and they had small ones, a nice looking variety.
Racewood Secu-Tech had some very small Audio/Video recorders which would record to SD cards. They also had a small quad recorder for 4 signals which could take hard drives under 300GB and LCD audio/video recorders that used SD cards.
Unitek had everything USB, Card readers, hard drive cases, flash drives, Hubs, audio adapters, PCI Express cards, PCMCIA ExpressCards and the usual adapters.
VideoHome had all kinds of PC/TV recording and connection, icluding video capture, video tomonitor, and wireless audio/Video.
That's it, we are off to the Venetian for our desert!
We didn't get many pictures at the International Hall, doing so requires long conversations and exchanges of business cards which can really make covering the hall take a long time. We prefer to try and snatch up the brochures of what looks interesting as we go by and run off before they can catch us. It's great execise and really speeds things up. Besides, to be honest we wanted to get to the Venetian so we could listen to some awesome sound systems.
HDMI was very hot this year, with many vendors for cables, switchers and distribution amps. Memory card picture frames were also everywhere at CES this year, so much so that you may soon see them for sale in 7/11.
Genmore International Showed off some real eye candy cables.
Carve had the usual computer cables, adapters and KVM stuff, but what really stood out was their selection of small USB hubs. Small is in with USB hubs, and they had small ones, a nice looking variety.
Racewood Secu-Tech had some very small Audio/Video recorders which would record to SD cards. They also had a small quad recorder for 4 signals which could take hard drives under 300GB and LCD audio/video recorders that used SD cards.
Unitek had everything USB, Card readers, hard drive cases, flash drives, Hubs, audio adapters, PCI Express cards, PCMCIA ExpressCards and the usual adapters.
VideoHome had all kinds of PC/TV recording and connection, icluding video capture, video tomonitor, and wireless audio/Video.
That's it, we are off to the Venetian for our desert!
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
CES 2007 Central Hall
We jumped on a bus to the central hall where all the buzz is. This is the splashiest hall where the biggest of the big boys display. Throw a rock and it will bounce off at least 12 flat panal displays before it hits the ground.
CES 2007 Central Hall
Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Toshiba, Samsung, LG, all the big players are here. Some of the displays you would swear are as big as a city block.
Before we get into the big boys, please forgive a little bit of a rant.
Like many people, I have Cable TV, multiple HD DVR's multple HDTV's in multiple rooms and it does cost a bit of money. But, I can't watch what I want, where I want, when I want without having to go to the room with the DVR that has that program on it unless I want to go into "on demand" which is a pita, and is not always even available, and sometimes has an extra charge even though I have the bloody program recorded on a different DVR. This has gone on too long for the sake of "content protection". When can I have a solution that will allow me to have happiness? Sure there are non HD solutions. Is that happiness? No, it is not. I don't want to record this content to DVD, or "steal" anything, I just want to time shift things, and have a complete, converged system with plenty of reasonably priced, easy to add storage to allow me to enjoy all the possible HD goodness available. Even normal people with a single HDTV and a single DVR should at least have easily upgraded storage options and a gui on their set top box that is not like windows 1.0. Vista could change this, but only if a lot of others get their act together. Pretty soon, we consumers will all just throw in the towel on the whole mediacenter thing, go to Apple TV or forget the whole thing and just spend all of our time on youtube. Um, ok, rant mode off.
Vista Does stuff
Microsoft is doing the big Vista push. It looks good, sounds good and it does great things. Thrilling and all, but XP works ok, and, well, see above.
Intel was very impressive. Their core2 Duo laptop video editing demo was great. Their core 2 Quad processor demos were equally great. The knowledgeable people manning their booths were great at showing off the capabilities of their great new processors. The Viiv booth was informative and even manned by sympathetic people who understood our general rantiness about the whole big multimedia splash that "seems" sans HD. In fact they gave us some hope. There will be (maybe already are D-link?) networked media "extenders" with HDMI output that will allow us to build a new DIY Media center with Vista that can transmit HD video to our HDTV's. We'll see.
DLP with LED? Yes, there was at least one displayed. This could be a great thing for DLP for more reasons than bulb life. Brightness, Color accuracy and gamut improvements would be nice added features.
LG Blu Ray/HD DVD Dual player - with the "Blues Brothers"
Blu Ray was all around as was HD DVD, but we are annoyed by the format war as much as anyone. Yes, LG did announce their dual format drive with the "Blues Brothers" which was entertaining. We certainly applaud LG for this.
Interesting too, was the blocked view of all connections on the back of the LG dual format drive. Is this product really real yet? We hope so. Might take a little while, but we love 'em for it.
Samsung people told us that snapping pictures of their new displays was not allowed, so we will not show any pictures. We might have said something good about their new displays, but with their attitude, we will not show any pictures of anything Samsung, just to be fair.
Toshiba had no problems with everybody shooting their new HD DVD players including their HD-XA2 player with Silicon Optix HQV processing. Sweet!
Enough for now, tomorrow, the International Hall at the Hilton, and hopefully a little High end audio at the Venetian.
We jumped on a bus to the central hall where all the buzz is. This is the splashiest hall where the biggest of the big boys display. Throw a rock and it will bounce off at least 12 flat panal displays before it hits the ground.
CES 2007 Central Hall
Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Toshiba, Samsung, LG, all the big players are here. Some of the displays you would swear are as big as a city block.
Before we get into the big boys, please forgive a little bit of a rant.
Like many people, I have Cable TV, multiple HD DVR's multple HDTV's in multiple rooms and it does cost a bit of money. But, I can't watch what I want, where I want, when I want without having to go to the room with the DVR that has that program on it unless I want to go into "on demand" which is a pita, and is not always even available, and sometimes has an extra charge even though I have the bloody program recorded on a different DVR. This has gone on too long for the sake of "content protection". When can I have a solution that will allow me to have happiness? Sure there are non HD solutions. Is that happiness? No, it is not. I don't want to record this content to DVD, or "steal" anything, I just want to time shift things, and have a complete, converged system with plenty of reasonably priced, easy to add storage to allow me to enjoy all the possible HD goodness available. Even normal people with a single HDTV and a single DVR should at least have easily upgraded storage options and a gui on their set top box that is not like windows 1.0. Vista could change this, but only if a lot of others get their act together. Pretty soon, we consumers will all just throw in the towel on the whole mediacenter thing, go to Apple TV or forget the whole thing and just spend all of our time on youtube. Um, ok, rant mode off.
Vista Does stuff
Microsoft is doing the big Vista push. It looks good, sounds good and it does great things. Thrilling and all, but XP works ok, and, well, see above.
Intel was very impressive. Their core2 Duo laptop video editing demo was great. Their core 2 Quad processor demos were equally great. The knowledgeable people manning their booths were great at showing off the capabilities of their great new processors. The Viiv booth was informative and even manned by sympathetic people who understood our general rantiness about the whole big multimedia splash that "seems" sans HD. In fact they gave us some hope. There will be (maybe already are D-link?) networked media "extenders" with HDMI output that will allow us to build a new DIY Media center with Vista that can transmit HD video to our HDTV's. We'll see.
DLP with LED? Yes, there was at least one displayed. This could be a great thing for DLP for more reasons than bulb life. Brightness, Color accuracy and gamut improvements would be nice added features.
LG Blu Ray/HD DVD Dual player - with the "Blues Brothers"
Blu Ray was all around as was HD DVD, but we are annoyed by the format war as much as anyone. Yes, LG did announce their dual format drive with the "Blues Brothers" which was entertaining. We certainly applaud LG for this.
Interesting too, was the blocked view of all connections on the back of the LG dual format drive. Is this product really real yet? We hope so. Might take a little while, but we love 'em for it.
Samsung people told us that snapping pictures of their new displays was not allowed, so we will not show any pictures. We might have said something good about their new displays, but with their attitude, we will not show any pictures of anything Samsung, just to be fair.
Toshiba had no problems with everybody shooting their new HD DVD players including their HD-XA2 player with Silicon Optix HQV processing. Sweet!
Enough for now, tomorrow, the International Hall at the Hilton, and hopefully a little High end audio at the Venetian.
CES 2007 Sands Expo Center
Well, we made a quick change of plans today. The monorail line was too long so we trekked on foot to the Sands Expo center rather than go straight to the Hilton International part of the show. The Sands grows every year and is filled with all kinds of products as well as the Innovations award winners. After that, on to the Central Hall. OK, lets get started.
While Enermax makes great cases, this is not one of them. It is a very unusual demo though. Liquid cooling is all the rage at this years CES, but this may be going a bit too far.
Lian Li is another great case manufacturer with some great cases this year, including some nice HTPC/Media center cases. This case is apparantly from their "snail period".
Cool cleaners - the iRobot vacuuming robots not only can avoid bumping into things, but they also can avoid falling off of them! Soon they will be furry, cute and have big loving eyes and smiling mouths so you can do away with the vacuum, dog or cat.
It's a house, no, it's a plane, no, it's a Runco projector!
Always amazing, but if you have to ask the price, well....
What's French, cute, and reads RSS feeds out loud? The Nabaztag Smart Rabbit is all that, hopefully it has a sexy french accent.
Well, we made a quick change of plans today. The monorail line was too long so we trekked on foot to the Sands Expo center rather than go straight to the Hilton International part of the show. The Sands grows every year and is filled with all kinds of products as well as the Innovations award winners. After that, on to the Central Hall. OK, lets get started.
While Enermax makes great cases, this is not one of them. It is a very unusual demo though. Liquid cooling is all the rage at this years CES, but this may be going a bit too far.
Lian Li is another great case manufacturer with some great cases this year, including some nice HTPC/Media center cases. This case is apparantly from their "snail period".
Cool cleaners - the iRobot vacuuming robots not only can avoid bumping into things, but they also can avoid falling off of them! Soon they will be furry, cute and have big loving eyes and smiling mouths so you can do away with the vacuum, dog or cat.
It's a house, no, it's a plane, no, it's a Runco projector!
Always amazing, but if you have to ask the price, well....
What's French, cute, and reads RSS feeds out loud? The Nabaztag Smart Rabbit is all that, hopefully it has a sexy french accent.
CES 2007 the South Hall
Some highlights.
Qualcomm Wireless Mobility booth was one of the most interesting we have ever seen. We dug it.
Belkin really had a great booth, with a group of different home settings and quite a few interesting devices set up to show how they might be used in the various locales...
Their Tunestudio was a new Audio interface connection for recording to iPods. Is this a new Belkin or what?
D-Link had a great booth with tons of great networking stuff. Their partner - Pure Networks has a great looking, easy network setup program called Network Magic that helps you setup, maintain and get more out of your network with a great gui design that looks like it can help network novices get the most out of their home networks without the help of their poor, overburdened geek freinds! You can download a free 30 day trial from:
http://www.networkmagic.com
Seagate/Maxtor had way too much to mention, just an amazing variety of storage solutions. Our favorite is the FreeAgent Pro - Access your content from anywhere, share it with anyone, and sync it to almost anything. Locally on your network or over the Internet. Wow!
Faroudja and Meridian had a fantastic demo showing off their MCTi film judder reduction technology. If film judder bothers you (hey who doesn't it!) you will be amazed at the difference this makes. Of course we did NOT ask for the price! Maybe someday this will get down to current DCDi type priced products. Fantastic demo, nonetheless.
Algolith had the new Flea with HDMI miniature Mosquito Noise reducer, compression artifact reducer which is around $1000, quite a budget device in comparison to their other video processors.
Gennums VXP processing was also shown off with great demos of most of their features. Very impressive demos in a large booth this year.
Gefen had a vast number of interesting new products including a budget Component video and HDMI scaler, two media recorders, Wireless USB 2.0, Wireless HDMI, Wireless Component video with audio, and a new high end scaler with Gennum VXP processing. Woah.
Thermaltake and Silverstone had amazing cases for HTPC or Windows media PCs. Stunningly nice lloking cases ready for proud display in the living room. Shown is the massive Thermaltake Mozart IP. Yikes!
That's just some of the great stuff we ran across in the huge South hall at CES 2007.
more tomorrow....
Some highlights.
Belkin really had a great booth, with a group of different home settings and quite a few interesting devices set up to show how they might be used in the various locales...
Their Tunestudio was a new Audio interface connection for recording to iPods. Is this a new Belkin or what?
D-Link had a great booth with tons of great networking stuff. Their partner - Pure Networks has a great looking, easy network setup program called Network Magic that helps you setup, maintain and get more out of your network with a great gui design that looks like it can help network novices get the most out of their home networks without the help of their poor, overburdened geek freinds! You can download a free 30 day trial from:
http://www.networkmagic.com
Seagate/Maxtor had way too much to mention, just an amazing variety of storage solutions. Our favorite is the FreeAgent Pro - Access your content from anywhere, share it with anyone, and sync it to almost anything. Locally on your network or over the Internet. Wow!
Faroudja and Meridian had a fantastic demo showing off their MCTi film judder reduction technology. If film judder bothers you (hey who doesn't it!) you will be amazed at the difference this makes. Of course we did NOT ask for the price! Maybe someday this will get down to current DCDi type priced products. Fantastic demo, nonetheless.
Algolith had the new Flea with HDMI miniature Mosquito Noise reducer, compression artifact reducer which is around $1000, quite a budget device in comparison to their other video processors.
Gennums VXP processing was also shown off with great demos of most of their features. Very impressive demos in a large booth this year.
Gefen had a vast number of interesting new products including a budget Component video and HDMI scaler, two media recorders, Wireless USB 2.0, Wireless HDMI, Wireless Component video with audio, and a new high end scaler with Gennum VXP processing. Woah.
Thermaltake and Silverstone had amazing cases for HTPC or Windows media PCs. Stunningly nice lloking cases ready for proud display in the living room. Shown is the massive Thermaltake Mozart IP. Yikes!
That's just some of the great stuff we ran across in the huge South hall at CES 2007.
more tomorrow....
Monday, January 08, 2007
Yes we are here at CES 20007 in Las Vegas! So far we are still in the recovery stage. Coming from New Jersey to Las Vegas is never easy, and a quick resurgence of energy is best accomplished with a good Sushi dinner and some refreshing adult liquid jet lag reducers. Mission accomplished, we prepared for tomorrows (Tuesday, January 9th) slog through the most brutal of torture tests.
The Plan:
Tuesday - The infamous "south hall."
Larger than most U.S. cities, the south hall is a brutal walkfest through a gigantic variety of Audio/Video, computer and all manner of consumer electronics devices.
As an athletic event, the CES show should be done in stages. The South hall is like the Mountain stages in the tour de france. Never ending and filled with interesting twists, turns, traffic and unforeseeable problems it just seems to go on forever.
Wednesday:
The plan is to do the International hall and central hall with the "quickie" run through the north hall to catch some of the amazing auto "booth babes" which are a good way to pick up some steam between halls. The International hall is mostly Chinese and other importers. Despite the popularity of the other "hot technology" halls, this one has some of the most interesting products imaginable, some good, some truly odd to our sensibilities. The Central Hall is the big time splash hall of technology for a lot of the major players in computers and A/V. Unfortunately this hall is very large, and among the dreck in the back there are some really interesting finds.
Thursday:
The Sands Expo center and a bit of the Venetian.
The Sands expo center has the innovations award winners and a lot of other real interesting stuff. Many importers also display here. The Venetian has the high end audio stuff.
Unlike before, the Venetian is not going to be next door to "The Show" - the other high end audio show in Vegas, which was formerly right next door. This is a big drag, since that was a great thing, two shows of great, high end audio right next to one another, but what can you do?
We will try to give you some decent pictures and a few highlights of less reported things. We are not going to give you another picture of the latest 104" plasma which everyone else will give you. We are here for the stuff you use to connect it.
The Plan:
Tuesday - The infamous "south hall."
Larger than most U.S. cities, the south hall is a brutal walkfest through a gigantic variety of Audio/Video, computer and all manner of consumer electronics devices.
As an athletic event, the CES show should be done in stages. The South hall is like the Mountain stages in the tour de france. Never ending and filled with interesting twists, turns, traffic and unforeseeable problems it just seems to go on forever.
Wednesday:
The plan is to do the International hall and central hall with the "quickie" run through the north hall to catch some of the amazing auto "booth babes" which are a good way to pick up some steam between halls. The International hall is mostly Chinese and other importers. Despite the popularity of the other "hot technology" halls, this one has some of the most interesting products imaginable, some good, some truly odd to our sensibilities. The Central Hall is the big time splash hall of technology for a lot of the major players in computers and A/V. Unfortunately this hall is very large, and among the dreck in the back there are some really interesting finds.
Thursday:
The Sands Expo center and a bit of the Venetian.
The Sands expo center has the innovations award winners and a lot of other real interesting stuff. Many importers also display here. The Venetian has the high end audio stuff.
Unlike before, the Venetian is not going to be next door to "The Show" - the other high end audio show in Vegas, which was formerly right next door. This is a big drag, since that was a great thing, two shows of great, high end audio right next to one another, but what can you do?
We will try to give you some decent pictures and a few highlights of less reported things. We are not going to give you another picture of the latest 104" plasma which everyone else will give you. We are here for the stuff you use to connect it.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
CES 2007 Coverage Starting January 8
We will be posting this year from the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) from Las Vegas from January 8-11.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
How to connect PC to Stereo?
I want to use my stereo to play back the music on my PC. How do I connect them?
The best way to connect a PC to a stereo depends on a few things.
Do you want the connection to use digital audio or analog audio?
Do you need stereo or surround sound?
Is your Sound card good enough to give you the results you want?
It is possible to use an adapter or a cable to do this directly from the soundcard. The results depend on the sound card.
A good example of a cable to go direcly from sound card to Stereo is our M2RCA "Ultimate iPod cable". It has the standard RCA connectors at the Stereo connection end, and the usual 1/8" (3.5mm) mini jack connector at the computer end to plug directly into most sound cards in PC's and Macs.
See here:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/ipod-cables.htm
For an easy, good sounding connection over USB, a Xitel "Hi-Fi Link" is a great way to go.
It connects to the computer using USB and sidesteps your sound card, so those with inexpensive sound cards will still get very nice results.
See here:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/HFL-A1-X1.html
For more professional results, or digital audio, M-Audio has a number of USB and firewire interfaces with two or more audio channels and combinations of Digital and analog audio. They have great driver support for the recording musician and the HTPC geek as well.
See here:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/preamps.html
For the ultimate in sound quality most people use PCI cards and we carry the best cards in their price ranges, M-Audio, RME and Lynx Studio Technology.
See here:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/sound_cards.html
If you need more information on the topic, please see our PC to Stereo main page, here:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/PC-to-stereo.html
The best way to connect a PC to a stereo depends on a few things.
Do you want the connection to use digital audio or analog audio?
Do you need stereo or surround sound?
Is your Sound card good enough to give you the results you want?
It is possible to use an adapter or a cable to do this directly from the soundcard. The results depend on the sound card.
A good example of a cable to go direcly from sound card to Stereo is our M2RCA "Ultimate iPod cable". It has the standard RCA connectors at the Stereo connection end, and the usual 1/8" (3.5mm) mini jack connector at the computer end to plug directly into most sound cards in PC's and Macs.
See here:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/ipod-cables.htm
For an easy, good sounding connection over USB, a Xitel "Hi-Fi Link" is a great way to go.
It connects to the computer using USB and sidesteps your sound card, so those with inexpensive sound cards will still get very nice results.
See here:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/HFL-A1-X1.html
For more professional results, or digital audio, M-Audio has a number of USB and firewire interfaces with two or more audio channels and combinations of Digital and analog audio. They have great driver support for the recording musician and the HTPC geek as well.
See here:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/preamps.html
For the ultimate in sound quality most people use PCI cards and we carry the best cards in their price ranges, M-Audio, RME and Lynx Studio Technology.
See here:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/sound_cards.html
If you need more information on the topic, please see our PC to Stereo main page, here:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/PC-to-stereo.html
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
How do the audio/Video over CAT5 Baluns work?
Q) How do the audio/Video over CAT5 Baluns work? Do these allow me to run audio/video over an Ethernet Network? Does the Audio/Video pass through network Hubs, Routers, Switches etc?
A) The A/V signals are not converted to Ethernet, they are converted to "balanced" audio or video signals
for transmission over twisted pair wiring. The cables should be dedicated to A/V signals, and should NOT be connected to your Ethernet network, Ethernet hubs, routers, etc. Here are the basics:
The Balun converts the audio or video signal into a "balanced" audio or video signal which will allow any picked up noise to be canceled out at the receiving balun. It is very important that the "halves" of a balanced run be as similar as possible in length and other attributes. Otherwise the ability to cancel out noise is effected. Using CAT6 or high quality CAT5e cable with tight tolerances will give the best possible results.
Each CAT5 balanced signal run has to be separate - you can't do splices or "Y" cables with balanced signals.You have to split the signals with distribution amplifiers before the baluns, which means you would need a separate balun for each and every sent and received audio/video signal. There are some baluns that combine audio and video or multiple separate video components (like separate RGB signals or Y-Pr-Pb) into one box, but these boxes actually contain multiple baluns in one box and will require more and more twisted pairs to be used within the CAT5 cable. If more signals are needed than there are twisted pairs in a CAT5 cable, then multiple CAT5 cables would be necessary.
A) The A/V signals are not converted to Ethernet, they are converted to "balanced" audio or video signals
for transmission over twisted pair wiring. The cables should be dedicated to A/V signals, and should NOT be connected to your Ethernet network, Ethernet hubs, routers, etc. Here are the basics:
The Balun converts the audio or video signal into a "balanced" audio or video signal which will allow any picked up noise to be canceled out at the receiving balun. It is very important that the "halves" of a balanced run be as similar as possible in length and other attributes. Otherwise the ability to cancel out noise is effected. Using CAT6 or high quality CAT5e cable with tight tolerances will give the best possible results.
Each CAT5 balanced signal run has to be separate - you can't do splices or "Y" cables with balanced signals.You have to split the signals with distribution amplifiers before the baluns, which means you would need a separate balun for each and every sent and received audio/video signal. There are some baluns that combine audio and video or multiple separate video components (like separate RGB signals or Y-Pr-Pb) into one box, but these boxes actually contain multiple baluns in one box and will require more and more twisted pairs to be used within the CAT5 cable. If more signals are needed than there are twisted pairs in a CAT5 cable, then multiple CAT5 cables would be necessary.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
How to connect HDMI to VGA/Component Video?
(Q) I have a HDMI male cable but my projector has only a VGA female input.
So, what i need is an adapter for the HDMI male with a HDMI female which can then connect to a 15 point VGA female. The problem is that it is all wired and the basement is finished.
(A) The first question that needs answering in these scenarios is what will be connected at the other end? Is it a DVD player with HDMI, a set top box with HDMI or DVI, or is it a computer with DVI?
Virtually all components with HDMI output, and most devices (other than computers) with DVI output have copy protection scheme built-in called "HDCP". When connecting video source devices like DVD players or Cable/Satellite Set Top Boxes that have HDCP, you must use a display with a digital input (DVI or HDMI) that supports HDCP as well. If the source has HDCP and the display does not - you will not get a picture.
All right, but you don't want to connect a digital device, you just want to connect your analog display with Component Video or VGA. Why can't you do this? Well, first you would need to convert the Digital video to analog video, and this is possible, although these converters do cost several hundred dollars. If there was no HDCP involved this would do it. It is not legal to make devices that will take an HDCP encrypted digital signal in and output that signal as analog video. The "rules" are actually a good deal more complicated than this, and there have been devices made that broke the rules, but they are very hard to find and not cheap in any case.
So what are your options?
1) Use a Source device (DVD player/Computer) that does not have HDCP and then use a Digital video to analog video converter to convert the digital video to the VGA signal you need. Be careful when selecting a DVD player, since most with digital outputs have HDCP. A DVI/HDMI adapter is generally not going to cause any problems.
Some Digital to analog video converter examples:
Gefen converters
Calrad converter
2) Replace the Projector with one that has a HDMI or DVI input with HDCP.
3) Run a "temporary" cable until you can do #1 or #2.
So, what i need is an adapter for the HDMI male with a HDMI female which can then connect to a 15 point VGA female. The problem is that it is all wired and the basement is finished.
(A) The first question that needs answering in these scenarios is what will be connected at the other end? Is it a DVD player with HDMI, a set top box with HDMI or DVI, or is it a computer with DVI?
Virtually all components with HDMI output, and most devices (other than computers) with DVI output have copy protection scheme built-in called "HDCP". When connecting video source devices like DVD players or Cable/Satellite Set Top Boxes that have HDCP, you must use a display with a digital input (DVI or HDMI) that supports HDCP as well. If the source has HDCP and the display does not - you will not get a picture.
All right, but you don't want to connect a digital device, you just want to connect your analog display with Component Video or VGA. Why can't you do this? Well, first you would need to convert the Digital video to analog video, and this is possible, although these converters do cost several hundred dollars. If there was no HDCP involved this would do it. It is not legal to make devices that will take an HDCP encrypted digital signal in and output that signal as analog video. The "rules" are actually a good deal more complicated than this, and there have been devices made that broke the rules, but they are very hard to find and not cheap in any case.
So what are your options?
1) Use a Source device (DVD player/Computer) that does not have HDCP and then use a Digital video to analog video converter to convert the digital video to the VGA signal you need. Be careful when selecting a DVD player, since most with digital outputs have HDCP. A DVI/HDMI adapter is generally not going to cause any problems.
Some Digital to analog video converter examples:
Gefen converters
Calrad converter
2) Replace the Projector with one that has a HDMI or DVI input with HDCP.
3) Run a "temporary" cable until you can do #1 or #2.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Question about HDMI to VGA with a Projector
(Q) I have a question about HDMI to VGA with a projector.
My DVD player has a HDMI output as well as Component video output, and my projector has a VGA connection input. Currently I am using a VGA to component cable and the component output from my DVD player.
My DVD player is capable of up-converting my DVDs to 720p or 1080i, but only through the HDMI output. I am wondering if there is a way via a cable or adapter to connect my DVD player via HDMI to my projectors VGA input.
(A) Every DVD player that has HDMI output also has HDCP copy protection. HDCP equipped outputs generally cannot be converted to analog video without "down rezzing" the signal to non-HD resolution, when at all. DVI to VGA converters can convert various digital video formats to analog, including the typical HDMI output formats, but when the DVI output has HDCP it is typically not allowed to convert to HD resolutions. In any case these converters are around $400 and it is really questionable if you want to spend that much money to have your DVD player de-interlace and upscale the image, rather than let the display de-interlace and upscale the image. You also have to ask will the outboard converter box convert from digital to analog better than the DVD player will make the D/A conversion? What about the extra connections?
Try comparing the DVD outputting 480p to the projector and 480i to the projector and see which looks better. This will tell you whether the DVD player or Projector is better at de-interlacing. There are some good de-interlacing test signals on AVIA, DVE and the HQV calibration and test disks if you are interested in testing.
The real question would be, when do you plan to upgrade the projector? If you will keep it for some time and want the best DVD playback, consider getting a used higher end 480p DVD player, or one of the rare players with upscaling VGA output.
My DVD player has a HDMI output as well as Component video output, and my projector has a VGA connection input. Currently I am using a VGA to component cable and the component output from my DVD player.
My DVD player is capable of up-converting my DVDs to 720p or 1080i, but only through the HDMI output. I am wondering if there is a way via a cable or adapter to connect my DVD player via HDMI to my projectors VGA input.
(A) Every DVD player that has HDMI output also has HDCP copy protection. HDCP equipped outputs generally cannot be converted to analog video without "down rezzing" the signal to non-HD resolution, when at all. DVI to VGA converters can convert various digital video formats to analog, including the typical HDMI output formats, but when the DVI output has HDCP it is typically not allowed to convert to HD resolutions. In any case these converters are around $400 and it is really questionable if you want to spend that much money to have your DVD player de-interlace and upscale the image, rather than let the display de-interlace and upscale the image. You also have to ask will the outboard converter box convert from digital to analog better than the DVD player will make the D/A conversion? What about the extra connections?
Try comparing the DVD outputting 480p to the projector and 480i to the projector and see which looks better. This will tell you whether the DVD player or Projector is better at de-interlacing. There are some good de-interlacing test signals on AVIA, DVE and the HQV calibration and test disks if you are interested in testing.
The real question would be, when do you plan to upgrade the projector? If you will keep it for some time and want the best DVD playback, consider getting a used higher end 480p DVD player, or one of the rare players with upscaling VGA output.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Laptop to Hotel TV connection for watching DVD's
(Q) When I'm on the road, I'd like to play DVD movies on my laptop. It has a VGA output, but no composite video or S-Video output. What can I use to transmit the DVD signal from my laptop to a hotel TV?
(A) It is hard to be sure what you are going to get on a hotel TV as far as connections go. Some only seem to have a coax "F" type standard Cable TV/Antenna input. Some will have a separate A/V input. That is usually about it.
Either scenario still require you to get the audio from the laptop to the TV (unless you have some external speakers for your laptop). You will need to go from a stereo 1/8"(3.5mm) connector on the laptop to two RCA connectors for left and right stereo channels.
An iPod connection cable like this will work very well for this, it has a six foot cable:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/ipod-cable-kit.htm
We will soon be offering custom length mini 1/8" stereo to dual RCA cables like this at a variety of lengths with very good Belden cable and some very nice connectors.
For a TV with A/V inputs (RCA jacks for Video and Right and Left Stereo audio) you will need a VGA to Video converter box. This will take a VGA signal from the laptop and down convert it to a standard definition NTSC or PAL output on composite video or S-Video.
This would be a good sized portable adapter:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/PC-TV_GTM-2000.html
More choices:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/PC-TV_video.html#pctv
The audio cables will go to the left/right TV audio inputs.
For a TV with a coax "F" type standard Cable TV/Antenna input:
You will first need to convert from VGA to video and audio, then modulate it to RF for the TV input. Two boxes. Not real travel friendly.
This would again be a good sized portable VGA to Video adapter:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/PC-TV_GTM-2000.html
Then you will need to take the video and audio and modulate it to an RF signal the TV will be able to "tune".
Here's an F modulator:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/rf-modulator.html
The audio cables will go to the left/right audio inputs on the RF modulator audio inputs.
(A) It is hard to be sure what you are going to get on a hotel TV as far as connections go. Some only seem to have a coax "F" type standard Cable TV/Antenna input. Some will have a separate A/V input. That is usually about it.
Either scenario still require you to get the audio from the laptop to the TV (unless you have some external speakers for your laptop). You will need to go from a stereo 1/8"(3.5mm) connector on the laptop to two RCA connectors for left and right stereo channels.
An iPod connection cable like this will work very well for this, it has a six foot cable:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/ipod-cable-kit.htm
We will soon be offering custom length mini 1/8" stereo to dual RCA cables like this at a variety of lengths with very good Belden cable and some very nice connectors.
For a TV with A/V inputs (RCA jacks for Video and Right and Left Stereo audio) you will need a VGA to Video converter box. This will take a VGA signal from the laptop and down convert it to a standard definition NTSC or PAL output on composite video or S-Video.
This would be a good sized portable adapter:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/PC-TV_GTM-2000.html
More choices:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/PC-TV_video.html#pctv
The audio cables will go to the left/right TV audio inputs.
For a TV with a coax "F" type standard Cable TV/Antenna input:
You will first need to convert from VGA to video and audio, then modulate it to RF for the TV input. Two boxes. Not real travel friendly.
This would again be a good sized portable VGA to Video adapter:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/PC-TV_GTM-2000.html
Then you will need to take the video and audio and modulate it to an RF signal the TV will be able to "tune".
Here's an F modulator:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/rf-modulator.html
The audio cables will go to the left/right audio inputs on the RF modulator audio inputs.
Friday, March 24, 2006
USB to Serial or Parallel Conversion question
Q) We have an older model laptop computer with no usb port. Recently it became necessary to replace our printer and it seems all the low end models have no parallel or serial connections. Is there a cable or adapter that would plug into the computer’s parallel or serial port and the usb (female b type) port on the printer?
A) No, sorry there is no way to connect a USB device through a serial or parallel port. There are adapters for the reverse connection, from serial or parallel to USB.
There are cards you can install into most fairly recent computers to add USB or USB 2.0 ports. These adapters have varying support for computer Operating Systems (Mac OS9.x/OSX or Windows XP/2000/98SE) and you will need to make sure that either the drivers are supplied or the Operating System includes generic or specific drivers for the device or chipset used in the device.
A) No, sorry there is no way to connect a USB device through a serial or parallel port. There are adapters for the reverse connection, from serial or parallel to USB.
There are cards you can install into most fairly recent computers to add USB or USB 2.0 ports. These adapters have varying support for computer Operating Systems (Mac OS9.x/OSX or Windows XP/2000/98SE) and you will need to make sure that either the drivers are supplied or the Operating System includes generic or specific drivers for the device or chipset used in the device.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Q/A DVI VGA conversion question
Question:
I bought a monitor that supports both analog and digital but my PC only has a VGA connection. So I am only using analog right now. But from what I have read digital gives off a better picture quality. So, is there a cable that will connect my DVI-D male monitor to my VGA female PC?
Answer:
Connecting a monitor with digital input to a computer with digital output should give a better quality video signal, mainly because all digital to analog and analog to digital conversions have been removed.
By adding a VGA to DVI-D converter for your monitor you are only just taking the analog to digital conversion and moving it outside of the monitor, since the monitor was doing this internally in the first place.
Is the external A/D converter going to be better or worse than the internal one? It is impossible to say without knowing the equipment. Most likely it will not be as good, since the internal converter was designed with the display in mind.
I bought a monitor that supports both analog and digital but my PC only has a VGA connection. So I am only using analog right now. But from what I have read digital gives off a better picture quality. So, is there a cable that will connect my DVI-D male monitor to my VGA female PC?
Answer:
Connecting a monitor with digital input to a computer with digital output should give a better quality video signal, mainly because all digital to analog and analog to digital conversions have been removed.
By adding a VGA to DVI-D converter for your monitor you are only just taking the analog to digital conversion and moving it outside of the monitor, since the monitor was doing this internally in the first place.
Is the external A/D converter going to be better or worse than the internal one? It is impossible to say without knowing the equipment. Most likely it will not be as good, since the internal converter was designed with the display in mind.
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