Multiple consoles home theater set up

Hey all my current TV speakers act a bit funny from time to time (sounds like something on the dome is loose) in any case i was thinking about getting some speakers to take the strain off the tv's and possibly prolong there life. any who does any one know the best way to set up a system like this? reason being i don't want to have to unplug and replug the sound system every time i swap consoles


googles not turning up any answers possibly because im not phrasing it right.. but if any one knows it would help alot - dont want to go in and talk to a sales person with out knowing what i need. damn upselling..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV_receiver

That's what we use at my house to switch between DVD, computer, and cable TV audio.

First off, you need to isolate the input channels and break it out into 2 streams, audio and video. This can be achieved ranging from what Canbambo posted above, to a multimedia amplifier depending on how complicated you want to go.

To start off, look at what kinds of inputs you're going to put straight into your TV? Some of the choices are:
- AV (yellow RCA cable for video, white and red RCA cable for audio)
- Component (red, blue, green RCA for video, white & red for audio)
- DVI
- HDMI
- PC analog

Make sure you get a box that can support all the necessary devices and has that many number of devices. Eg: If you have 2 HDMI and 2 Components, then make sure it has that many switches. Some of these boxes might have scaling as well, so be aware of them. HDMI for example can render up to 1080p, whereas AV is only 400? and component is only 500?. Not sure of my numbers, but it's around there. What you want in a box is that its video output will match the highest input, with possible upscaling on the rest, or just another output for those lower qualities.

NOTE: one of the reasons you need an external device is because HDMI (and maybe DVI too) has an all in one cable, which is quite tricky to demux otherwise .

Once you have the box, plugs everything into the box and plug its outputs into the TV. That will get you pictures, but no sound. Now, we need to get some sounds. Since you didnt have any speakers, you would need to consider whether to buy a package or to get the parts yourself. You will also need to consider whether you want surround sounds or not. Once you have your speakers, just plug the outputs from the above box into the inputs of your speakers and you should be set.

^ Most helpful post i have seen in southperry in a while - so i need an amp that has 2 HDMI ports and may as well hook up the wii so one AV

Oh also i use playTV to tape TV shows onto the PS3 this connects to the antenna atm i just have a splitter conecting the antenna wire to the tv and playtv box would this effect the set up?

Because HDMI video and audio is in 1 cable, you need something to separate them. With your wii, you can directly plug the video out (I think it's component) into the TV, while hook the audio to the speakers as an alternative. However, the speakers set need to allow multiple channels.

It is probably best to figure out what kind of speakers you're planning to get first as most modern speakers require an amp to drive it. Some amps allow you to have multiple input channels, so you might not need to get an extra box.

It seems that you live in Australia. It's a bit sad, since Australia doesnt have as much hardware, nor it is cheap.

Another thing you may want to do is to check for 2 things from your TV. The first is an audio out and the second is a function to turn off the attached speakers, ie to make the TV not outputting sounds to the built-in speakers.

If you can do that with your TV, then it has essentially served as a demux box for you and all you need to do is to hook the audio out to the speakers.

And for the playTV box, check if it has an antenna out. If it does, then just plug your antenna cable to playTV antenna in, and another antenna cable from playTV antenna out to TV antenna in.

I've been doing that from the VCR days to the new dvd player with builtin hdd.