Need help with computer -> home entertainment system

[Matcat]

me and my family are going to set up a home entertainment system for christmas and i need to know how to do it.

We are going to get a DVD player and a surround sound system. we already have a tv, an amp/EQ and satellite dish.

Im going to buy a video card that has video out so that i can play my divx movies on the tv in the next room.

my question is how can we get the computer to send the video and audio to the next room (with surround sound) will i have to get a new sound card too? or will the audio go through the video card? how does this work?

if im thinking correctly the cable from the computer will go the the DVD player, the DVD player will split the audio and video, the video will go to the TV and the audio will go to the surround sound. but where will the satellite video/audio go? from the satelite audio straight to surround sound and satelite video to surround, or can we also pipe the satelite through the DVd player?

any help on the subject would be appreciated.

[lattedfw]

If I read your post correctly, you assume there is video in and out on a DVD player (like a VCR). There is only video out on any DVD player I've ever seen.

To do what you're talking about, I have done the following:

1- I have a Scan converter to go from PC-video to regular TV video. A video card with regular TV video out eliminates needing a scan converter. (My PCs' video cards don't have regular TV video-out.)

2- I bought one of those wireless video things from the same company that makes the X10 wireless video camera; There's a transmitter part into which you put regular TV video-out from the video card (or scan converter in my case) and audio out from the soundcard. It transmits on 2.4GHz to the receiver which has composite video out and Left and Right audio out. The image quality is just so-so.

You could get the PC closer to the home theater setup, run the video from the card to a video-in on your receiver, or to the TV directly (assuming it has multiple video-in options). You can run audio out of the soundcard. I have a cable that goes from stero 1/8-inch to two RCA audio plugs (not sure where I got it, but Radio Shack probably sells these). Put your sound card at a VERY low volume and connect the two RCA plugs to the audio-in on your receiver. Adjust the PC volume slowly. This would be the same audio-out plug on the soundcard as your speakers plug into.

That's my kludgy opinion/experience.

[Matcat]

angelfire.com/ga3/mkproject/setup.jpg to see my "diagram"

but from what you are telling me the DVD player cannot act as a hub

so what can be used as a hub?

[lattedfw]

Your surround system will be the hub. My surround system has several video-in, audio-in, video-out and audio-out connections. Everything goes to it (DVD, DishNetwork, misc other input like computer video or VCR etc.). One video out goes to the TV.

One other thought - you can't use your VCR as the 'hub' either - I tried that once but the Macrovision copy protection encoded in DVDs causes the video on the TV to brighten and dim.

If your surround system doesn't have video in, you can probably get a cheap switchbox type thing from Radio Shack to switch input sources.