How to save your aging home theatre

I've been facing this problem for a while, but have been too lazy (as usual) to do anything about it. The problem was brought front and center during a conversation with a friend of mine. Let me explain.

My current home setup has a Cambridge Audio Azur 540 as the receiver, KEF Q-series speakers (two floor stander mains, two bookshelf surrounds and a center), a Wharfdale bottom firing subwoofer, an LG 42" Plasma TV, a Sony DVD player, a Sony PS3, An Apple TV and my Tata Sky+ Cable set top box.

The problem is: My TV (which is 7 years old) has only one HDMI input and my Cambridge Audio (again 7 years old) has no HDMI processing and has only one optical TOSLink input. Do you see where the problem is?

If I want to get surround sound, I need the device (either my DVD player or my PS3 or my Apple TV) to feed it to the Amp over an optical link. Up until a couple of years ago, this was not a problem as the only source capable of playing surround sound was my DVD player. But now I had 3 sources and only one connection into the Amp. The source had become the PS3 (mainly because I have been watching more BluRay content these days), but this solution was not going to be, what's the techie jargon I'm looking for, scalable.

So when my friend bought a new Yamaha amp so that he could have HDMI switching and Airplay and all the nice things that come with it, a thought wormed itself into my mind. I needed a way to make this work without making too much of investment. And that'w where the research started.

Now the solution is so crazily simple, it will make you all laugh.

I got a small device called the ViewHD Matrix HDMI Switch which is this super cool little device. 

It allows four HDMI sources (it supports HDMI 1.3b which means it supports 3D as well) to be connected as sources which can then be displayed on two HDMI displays (one will be your TV and the other can be your HD Projection system...something that's on my shopping list and which should come in a few months). But here's what makes the device special...It has an optical out! So the device filters out the sound from the source's HDMI signal and sends it thro the TOSlink to the Amp! Hurray! My problem solved! I tested it...all my sources can now spit out surround output to my Amp which beautifully reproduces the sound (did I say I love my Amp?)! My setup now plays whatever encoding the source is playing (DTS, THX, Dolby Digital ES or Stereo) natively without making any physical changes! But wait, there's more. 

The cute little device has an audio headphone output port which I can use to hook up my wireless headphones. Hurray!!! Now no matter what I'm watching late night, I can still enjoy the full benefits of sound without waking the house (which i will anyways do when ManU scores a goal)

Simply outstanding! Here's the amazing part...I paid only USD79 for it! That's nothing considering that this little piece of equipment made in China just made my current setup future proof. I can do Airplay (something that I have been doing for a while now, but only in stereo as the output was feeding only the TV), play BluRay rips from my PS3 (with HD Audio) and my DVD player still plays DTS DVDs to my heart's content!

Do I have more? You can bet your a$$ I do.

Now you may have noticed that I have a fair few devices that need to be controlled (and a new one for the ViewHD), so you will not be surprised to hear that I have a Logitech Harmony 700 Universal Remote to make sure that I have only one remote control to use. Unfortunately, the Harmony can't control the PS3 natively as the PS3 works over Bluetooth and not InfraRed. So I got a Logitech adapter for the PS3 which pairs as a controller over BT with the PS3 and then takes IR instructions from the Harmony! Sweet?

There's more!

But that's for another post :)

Keep waiting for that...hehehehehehe