I recently added a projector & some surround sound (hello 1993!) to my setup at home. I've run into what must be a pretty common problem - lots of media sources and multiple display / sound devices. IE:

Bravia LCD TV (Video, VGA, component, HDMI inputs, stereo sound)
DVD Player / home theatre thing.
Bunch of associated speakers for the surround sound.
Wii (Component or Video out).
Data Projector (S-Video, Video, 2xVGA).
Media Centre PC (usual connections).

All of a sudden I have all of these devices with different video and audio connections and standards. Getting each device available to play on either of the displays at the best quality with whatever audio it can produce to the speaker setup looks like a nightmare of cable and remote juggling. Its only going to get worse if I add another console / HD player sometime.

Is there a 'magic box' transcodery device that I can just plug all this s*** into and choose "Wii input to Projector output" or "PC input to LCD output" etc?

What I have done is choose one medium!
Ie plug alllll inputs into TV and have TV output to sound, and with that Bravia TV you can change the name of the inputs so that you know which one to select.
Doesn't solve the problem of turning having heaps of remotes and having to turn devices on, but youd have that problem anyway.
Oh and that bravia TV, the remote can be programmed to be a universal remote. I have a sony theatre setup and it works great. Turn on tv, and turn on sound at the same time! And it can be programmed to work with other brands too!

Don't know about the Data Projector though....the TV should have a monitor out or something that you may be able to use?

well normally you buy receiver which everything plugs into.....

Yeh I had a look into those, but the VGAs seem to be messing my plans up. Was late last night and I didn't make that clear - AV receivers seem to love the s*** out of component & HDMI. My data projector in particular is video / s-video or VGA only, and the other devices are video or component & HDMI. I could just use video / s-video but it would be a bit arse-looking.

There seem to be devices that can with varying degress of success convert YPbPr (component) to RGBHV (VGA) :



If those things actually work then it would make life easier (hence the transcodery bit of the Q). Anyone used one of those - what about the XBOX 360 VGA cable - would that work?

last edited by Hogfather at 10:02:39 18/May/08

a good AV receiver along with a Universal remote (Logitech Harmony) will fix you up. i run the following all through my Pioneer receiver (has s-video)

TV: LG 42" Plasma LG42PX2RV|DVD-HDD: LGRH-7521W|PVR: Topfield 7000HD PVRt|Amp: Pioneer VSX-816|Speakers: 5.1 Dream Hi-fi (Dream CX-12 Sub)|Xbox 360/Wii/Austar

i run austar via DVD which allows me to record easily and PVR & DVD run via Pioneer on two separate component connections.
plus you get digital sound inputs. and mines an old model so i have less of everything.
also try here http://www.dtvforum.info/

Hi crazymorton,


I hope you'll be able to help me... I see that you have a Pioneer VSX-816. I also hace this receiver.

The thing is I want to plug out my TV and a projector... My TV is on the RCA monitor out and works great. I putted my projector on S-video Monitor out. I would like to be able to see for example a movie on both screen. It doesn't work!?!
In fact that's weird because when I push the setup buton the menu is oln both screen (TV and projector)... But when I quit the menu in order to see a movie, it only is on the TV (the projector is black screen....)?

Do you know what to do? Thanks a lot to help me!