Onkyo SR876 and media centre pc help / advice

[admin_exported]

Hello first post on here so be gentle. I am going to be sorting out a home cinema setup within the next few weeks. I am definately getting a Pioneer PDP LX5090 tv unit, and I was looking at an Onkyo SR876 av reciever to complement it (speakers still not sure off yet)

My reasons for the Onkyo is of the upscaling Reon chip that it uses to upsample to full hd.

I have a media centre pc which has various tuner cards installed (dvb s and soon to be dvb t), and also a blu ray player, it is basically the source of any entertainment.

I want to connect the media pc (hdcp compatible by use of a Radeon HD4670 graphics card) to the Onkyo and allow the Onkyo to upsample to full hd before outputting to the tv. As I am doing research I downloaded a copy of the manual and on page 43 it says that the amp is not compatible with a pc (It does actually say earlier in the manual though that it is compatabile with hdcp compliant devices)

Does / Has anyone know if it will work if I connect the pc via hdmi to a hdmi input on the amp, and the connect the amp to the tv via hdmi?

If not can anybody recommend me an amp that will do the above? (I was thinking about a Pioneer VSX LX 81 or VSX LX 90 but I dont believe they have the Reon chip)

Cheers

James

 

[Andrew Everard]

I think it means that conventional PC output, such as one might feed to a monitor for normal computing use, isn't supported.

If you have a PC with an HDMI output specifically designed for AV use, I see no reason why this shouldn't work perfectly well.

 

[Anonymous]

cheers Andrew, a few shops I have been to dont know the answer to it. I do have an old sony str av amp but that will not output the signal to the tv (it is hd but Im not sure of the quality an upscaling dvd via hdmi did work with it but would only give 480p)

Is there much real world difference between the faroudia and reon? If not I may got for one of the pioneer units (will please the wife by having one less remote )

 

[Andrew Everard]

Both Faroudja and Reon systems are very good. I happen to favour Reon, but then I'm a TX-SR875 owner, but really the maker of this part of the video processing shouldn't be a deal-breaker

 

[Gerrardasnails]

jaytc2003:
Hello first post on here so be gentle. I am going to be sorting out a home cinema setup within the next few weeks. I am definately getting a Pioneer PDP LX5090 tv unit, and I was looking at an Onkyo SR876 av reciever to complement it (speakers still not sure off yet)

My reasons for the Onkyo is of the upscaling Reon chip that it uses to upsample to full hd.

I have a media centre pc which has various tuner cards installed (dvb s and soon to be dvb t), and also a blu ray player, it is basically the source of any entertainment.

I want to connect the media pc (hdcp compatible by use of a Radeon HD4670 graphics card) to the Onkyo and allow the Onkyo to upsample to full hd before outputting to the tv. As I am doing research I downloaded a copy of the manual and on page 43 it says that the amp is not compatible with a pc (It does actually say earlier in the manual though that it is compatabile with hdcp compliant devices)

Does / Has anyone know if it will work if I connect the pc via hdmi to a hdmi input on the amp, and the connect the amp to the tv via hdmi?

If not can anybody recommend me an amp that will do the above? (I was thinking about a Pioneer VSX LX 81 or VSX LX 90 but I dont believe they have the Reon chip)

Cheers

James

It should work. I have a lesser pc (with lesser graphics card) and it worked fine with my old Sony receiver to output on my screen. I would have thought that your graphics card has an hdmi connection (if you have a BD drive) so just connect that to your receiver. Not as sure with the audio side of things.

 

[Anonymous]

Gerrardasnails:

It should work. I have a lesser pc (with lesser graphics card) and it worked fine with my old Sony receiver to output on my screen. I would have thought that your graphics card has an hdmi connection (if you have a BD drive) so just connect that to your receiver. Not as sure with the audio side of things.

okay cheers, the media pc has an optical out which I currently have connected to my sony str k880, but the motherboard can also have a connector which will alow sound transfer over hdmi, either way though from reading the Onkyo manual (gives me something to do at work) it looks like I could assign a different sound input at the same time

 

[cram]

I've got an Onkyo 876 hooked up to my PC via an ATI 4850 video card. This works fine. The video card is capable of outputing 7.1 sound. I think your model should also be able to output sound over HDMI but check on this (if so you will need drivers from the realtek website). Also note that I am saying 7.1 sound not necessarily the HD sound found on blurays - its more complicated to get that output unmolested.

Just a note on the upscaling - I think this depends on what resolution you are feeding from the PC into the amp. If you are feeding in a 1920 x 1080 res screen then the Onkyo won't be upscaling this though you can still use some of the picture processing available in the amp. In this instance your PC will be doing the upscaling (which you maybe happy with).

 

[Anonymous]

Cheers Cram, my gfx card does the same as yours sound wise. After doing more research, I have now realised (like you mention) that I can set the pc to full hd resolution, and can then just either use the amp to "tidy" up the picture (for when playing avi / divx etc) or I could set the amp to passthrough and let the tv deal with picture processing. Either way I think starting at source with the best is the way to go

Does your sr876 work ok straight from the box with your 4850? Someone else has told me it struggles

cheers

 

[cram]

first couple of times I used it had a few HDMI handshake issues and couldn't get a picture but then seemed to sort itself out and everything had been fine for the last 3 months or so.