help with spltting AV in seperate rooms
#1
wasn't sure where to put this so hear goes. hopefully someone can help

my dad has recently come out of having a major back operation and he lives by himself out in the bush.

i've been trying to upgrade his setup for a while, ever since he brought a new plasma tv so he can watch his tv shows/movies etc in proper HD since he is still running everything thru RCA etc so it looks horrid on his new tv.

i've done up a new computer for him with XBMC (he uses XBMC currently)
i want to give this to him and set everything up so he can watch it all in HD.

the problem arises because he needs it to display on both tvs at the same time (the new one, and an old one in his bedroom, just has RCA)

also it must run the audio thru his receiver so he gets sound thru all his speakers around the house. the receiver is a bit old but it does have optical for audio, but only RCA for video inputs.

his current setup is as follows.

PC running XBMC runs to receiver via a VGA-RCA adapter.
Austar box connects to an LG DVD player/burner thru RCA, then that connects to the receiver, this is so he can record austar. Im fairly sure the lg dvd thing is one of those HDD ones as well.

he then splits the video with a homemade splitter cable from his receiver.

it seems like a really complicated setup but he has it running how he likes apart from everything looking so bad on his new tv because most of the content is HD from shows/movies i have given him.

he has about 4tb of stuff all up.

now im hoping to make it do the same as it is doing now but with my new computer added to the mix and have it so its thru HDMI so all the HD content is displayed properly on his new tv.

its doing my head in trying to figure out how to go about this and keep it so everything is still basically the same.

the stipulations i have from him:

it must show the video on both tvs, and audio thru reciever.
austar has to stay connected to burner and still display thru both tvs as usual.

as long as i can manage that and incorporate it with the new PC he will be happy.

does anyone have any ideas how i can go about this without having to spend a fortune?

i've been looking at some of those AV senders that send video/audio wirelessly to other tvs etc but none i have found have both HDMI and RCA on the units.


i have also seen this at cablechick
http://www.cablechick.com.au/cables/...upscaling.html

it seems like i could use that to convert all the old RCA stuff upto HD as well and then perhaps use a AV sender to send that to both tvs?

it seems awfully expensive though.

is there any other cheaper options?

any and all help/tips/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

i really want to get this setup for him as since his back op he is going to be wheelchair bound for a fair while so i want to make it as enjoyable for him as possible given the circumstances.
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#2
This is pretty much the only option:
http://www.cypeurope.com/Synergy/SY-M388...caler.html

$$$ though. It's the HDMI HDCP stripping to give a composite signal that's the tricky part.

I have a wireless composite (RCA-yellow, red, white) system that is working well we could discuss further.
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#3
thanks i have been looking at some of those options but i actually had a cheaper idea that i just thought of.

i can just replace the old style tv in his room with a cheap LCD tv in the 30-32cm range for cheaper then all these options and just run HDMI cables from the video card of the pc to each tv. the video card has dual DVI and i have 2 dvi-hdmi adapters already so i can just run those to each tv and run the desktop as duplicate on each screen to get the desired result for xbmc?

then i can just run optical from the pc to the receiver for sound.

as for the other devices i can just leave them how they are currently setup.

that way for all the HD content from xbmc it will be HD, and the other stuff from austar, dvd etc will just be SD.

i think this should be the cheapest most efficient option, what do you think?
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#4
If the video card has two outputs, can you not just go:

DVI1 -> HDMI -> New TV <------------¬
DVI2 -> VGA -> RCA -> receiver -> RCA^Split -> Old TV
Austar -> DVD -^

It would mean that he would have to change video input on the new TV when watching XBMC, but that's cheaper than any of the other suggestions.

Hope he recovers soon.
Asus AT5IONT-I in an A+ CUPID-3 + 2TB Seagate LP + 16GB SSD + Ubuntu + Samba + XBMC

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