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Warning: long post ahead.
This is somewhat related to my other thread about Blu-Ray players.
The way our TV is currently set up is quite complicated for people who don't know what they're doing (I do since I installed it all, but my parents can't remember to save their life
)
Basically, we have 3 HDMI-using devices - a Blu-Ray player of some kind (TBD), a cable box (Scientific Atlanta model, the kind most companies use), and my Xbox 360.
These 3 things are hooked into an Onkyo receiver which has a total of 4 HDMI inputs - each one has been configured with its own settings etc. and then it plugs into the TV via HDMI1.
Sadly, our model receiver won't convert component to HDMI, so for the Wii, it's plugged directly into the TV.
Now, our receiver has an imitation VieraLink built into it (I think it's called HDMI Smart Mode or something like that, can't remember) - and effectively what that means is that when we turn the TV on or off, the receiver also turns on or off - and when I adjust the TV's volume, it passes that onto the receiver. Makes it much easier since we have too many remotes and they're all programmed for the TV. In addition, I've disabled the TV's built in speaker to avoid confusion, so because the TV thinks it has a VieraLink receiver, it will just pass volume commands on to the receiver.
So in order to fix the problem of the Wii, I have an optical SPDIF cable coming from the TV's "audio out" jack to the receiver's "TV in" jack, and it's smart enough to know (again, emulation VieraLink) that if it's changed to a non-HDMI input, to use the TV in.
Now, when I replaced the PS3 with the Samsung Blu-Ray player, which has its own form of VieraLink emulation, I discovered something really interesting and useful. If the TV is on HDMI1 like it should be, and if the receiver is set to something else such as the cable box or Xbox, if the player is turned on, it automatically switches the receiver to the Blu-Ray source.
What would be really useful, and effectively eliminate the need to use the receiver's remote at all (because hey, ideally I want my family to just be able to turn the TV on, then grab the remote of whatever device they're using, UNLESS they're using the Wii, but that hardly ever happens), is if I could somehow get something that does the same VieraLink cloning so that when the cable box is turned on, it kicks the receiver over to cable and so on.
Is there such a thing?
The other thing I considered was one of those auto-sensing HDMI switches, but those are expensive and not as useful in this case, because I have different settings (the Blu-Ray player is set to Dolby Pro Logic Movie, the Xbox is on DPL Game, and the cable box is on something similar, I think I just have direct pass-through so it doesn't upscale the 5.1 to 7.1) and that would mean only using one input on the receiver, with virtually no way to change it yourself if the switch malfunctions and isn't showing the right source.
What sort of options do I have?
This is somewhat related to my other thread about Blu-Ray players.
The way our TV is currently set up is quite complicated for people who don't know what they're doing (I do since I installed it all, but my parents can't remember to save their life
)Basically, we have 3 HDMI-using devices - a Blu-Ray player of some kind (TBD), a cable box (Scientific Atlanta model, the kind most companies use), and my Xbox 360.
These 3 things are hooked into an Onkyo receiver which has a total of 4 HDMI inputs - each one has been configured with its own settings etc. and then it plugs into the TV via HDMI1.
Sadly, our model receiver won't convert component to HDMI, so for the Wii, it's plugged directly into the TV.
Now, our receiver has an imitation VieraLink built into it (I think it's called HDMI Smart Mode or something like that, can't remember) - and effectively what that means is that when we turn the TV on or off, the receiver also turns on or off - and when I adjust the TV's volume, it passes that onto the receiver. Makes it much easier since we have too many remotes and they're all programmed for the TV. In addition, I've disabled the TV's built in speaker to avoid confusion, so because the TV thinks it has a VieraLink receiver, it will just pass volume commands on to the receiver.
So in order to fix the problem of the Wii, I have an optical SPDIF cable coming from the TV's "audio out" jack to the receiver's "TV in" jack, and it's smart enough to know (again, emulation VieraLink) that if it's changed to a non-HDMI input, to use the TV in.
Now, when I replaced the PS3 with the Samsung Blu-Ray player, which has its own form of VieraLink emulation, I discovered something really interesting and useful. If the TV is on HDMI1 like it should be, and if the receiver is set to something else such as the cable box or Xbox, if the player is turned on, it automatically switches the receiver to the Blu-Ray source.
What would be really useful, and effectively eliminate the need to use the receiver's remote at all (because hey, ideally I want my family to just be able to turn the TV on, then grab the remote of whatever device they're using, UNLESS they're using the Wii, but that hardly ever happens), is if I could somehow get something that does the same VieraLink cloning so that when the cable box is turned on, it kicks the receiver over to cable and so on.
Is there such a thing?
The other thing I considered was one of those auto-sensing HDMI switches, but those are expensive and not as useful in this case, because I have different settings (the Blu-Ray player is set to Dolby Pro Logic Movie, the Xbox is on DPL Game, and the cable box is on something similar, I think I just have direct pass-through so it doesn't upscale the 5.1 to 7.1) and that would mean only using one input on the receiver, with virtually no way to change it yourself if the switch malfunctions and isn't showing the right source.
What sort of options do I have?
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