Connecting PC To Av Receiver- How and what receiver to buy!!

[admin_exported]

HI all ! Apologies Im a right NOOB but looking at investing in an AV receiver with £300 odd to spend. Id want to connect my PC through it cos of all the lovely films i have on the hard disc but must the AV receiver have a PC input? I see in this magazines buyers guide that only the more expensive receivers have them?

What Amps can anyone recommend within budget?

Id really appreciate your help

Thanks

 

[Gerrardasnails]

It depends on what graphics card you have. If you have a dvi connection - you can buy a dvi to hdmi cable and connect your pc to a receiver with hdmi inputs (most of them now). You can get a Denon AVR 1508 for about £220. Or the next sort of level would be my receiver, Sony STR-DA1200ES - you can pick one up for about £270. You would also need to deal with sound. If your sound card on your pc has a digital output (optical or coaxial) you can connect that to your receiver. If not, analogue cables from pc to receiver.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your help!

Why does the receiver require linking up with the graphics card. I presumed the receiver only distributed the audio signal to each speaker. Also I have 4 speakers and a subwoofer at present. can the receiver make the most of this or do i need to get a fifth speaker? Do you know what the pc input i mentioned is- or can pretty much all receivers be connected to pcs?

cheers

 

[Gerrardasnails]

Your graphics card will have the pc outputs on the back of your machine. You will have VGA or DVI and some now even have hdmi - that would make things even easier. I would get a centre speaker to make a 5.1 surround system - you can get them individually for not a lot of money and they are the most important speaker for films.

 

[professorhat]

[quote user="noshoesnocake"]
Why does the receiver require linking up with the graphics card. [/quote]
Depends on what you want to do. If you want, you can connect your PC up to an AV amp for video and audio. Obviously the audio connection (be it analogue phono or digital optical) will get sent to the speakers. If you connect the video signal as well, the amp acts like a switch, so when you select the PC source on the amp, the amp will automatically send the video signal to the TV as well. Some amps will also upscale the video fed into it, though this probably isn't so crucial for your PC if you have a high end graphics card.

Whether to get the centre speaker really depends on whether the films stored on the PC have a 5.1 soundtrack encoded into them. If not, you won't really get any benefit from it (unless you also have a DVD / HD player which you play films on).

 

[Anonymous]

cheers for your help guys, much appreciated!