On Tue, 2009-11-17 at 12:28 +0200, Theunis Potgieter wrote:
In my case, I have a Samsung T260 screen with fibre out, probably SPDIF. In this case the monitor would then be my limitation. Should I get an amp that takes hdmi as input and passes video onto the screen?
If the signal source is Blu-Ray disc then there is IMHO benefit with a HDMI capable AV receiver (excluding the early crap those were only dumb switches without audio tapping capability). Personally I've found the PCM or Dolby/DTS HD tracks sound better via possibly better mix than standard AC3 tracks. Audio coding improvement should not be that big.
With just VDR DVB-C/T/S as a source there probably is no real advantage to upgrade to HDMI only over legacy SPDIF from TV to AVR setup. There could be usability improvements via CEC control channel though. And I don't know if CEC is supported by any PC HDMI hardware. (But perhaps in future VDR could get control from CEC from TV remote control too?)
With my AV receiver HDMI menus it's also possible to select to route the audio to home theater or TV speakers like in your setup (with home theater system muted) though I never use TV speakers. They are pretty bad nowadays.
This page might be useful
http://www.hdmi.org/installers/index.aspx
BR, Seppo