Hooking pc speakers up to tv & console the cheap way?

[tongue_of_colicab]

Hi there,

I´m looking for a way to hook up my htpc, tv and console to a pc speaker system. I want some decent sound and with todays 5.1 pc speaker sets at 60 euro´s for something decent I though that would be nice. But I dont really have a clue to my embarresment on how to hook this up. I know you can use a dvd player for your tv and even hook it up to your stereo (I only have a old one, that dont even use 3.5mm jacks for connecting speakers but just loose wiring) but those wont work for a 3 systems.

Isnt there some piece of cheap kit to solve this? My tv only has 2x scart, my htpc uses s-video to scart and ofcourse the console also uses scart.

 

[RudeCurve]

From what I've seen the lower priced 5.1 speakers for PCs only have analog inputs that are made to hook up to sound cards with analog outputs. If your HTPC has multichannel analog outputs then all you need to do is get some cables to hook it up to the speakers. As far as consoles go and depending on which console you're talking about, it could be hooked up to the HTPC through the "line in or aux in" jacks. If you also want to hook up the tv to the speaker system then just get some RCA to minijack cables then use a Y cable to the HTPC to share the single input on the PC with the console.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Will that work? My tv only has scart, so I can never have 5.1 with that I think. For example I now have a s-video with 2 rca cable to 1 scart between my htpc and tv but I dont think I can get sound from the speakers that way if I watch normal tv. You probably need something of a receiver but these things are expensive. Isnt there something like a box that just connects everything? I'm really a complete noob when it comes down to audio/video.

 

[Davros]

"Will that work? My tv only has scart, so I can never have 5.1 with that I think."

tv programs dont have 5.1 sound
your dvd player should have the outputs then just buy a 5.1 speaker system

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Do tv's understand that if you hook them up with scart to a dvd player that they need to play tv sound on that also when not playing dvd's? (i dont have a dvd player btw). I dont think a dvd player will do btw. I need the scart for the tv, than the connection the wii has and than what my htpc has right?

 

[Blazkowicz]

rudecurve'point was, you would get the sound from the TV, through the headphone jack, then it goes to the PC's line-in, then it's output by the PC to the speakers. a drawback is that the PC has to be running.

if you don't have a headphone jack (which is what you mean?), SCART is able to output sound from the TV (as well as composite video). I have a SCART to twin RCA cable that does just that but it gets complicated with your multiple devices. Here the TV's sound still works (well it did with my TV), so the deal is you can get TV's sound if the PC is off and sound on the PC's speaker if the PC is on.

Note that your TV has a "real" SCART and a "fake" SCART, the real one supports RGB and the advanced SCART features while the second one is only meant for composite/Svideo/sound input (I think)

So you could have the PC on the "fake" SCART, and use the real SCART to get signals from the console in, and audio from the TV out.
such a thing could help though it's unclear whether it takes sound from the TV or from the device. but some rewiring would be doable (?) if you're up to it.
http://www.nexxia.co.uk/Audio_Connectors/images/NX-SCT-031.jpg
spotted here :
http://www.nexxia.co.uk/Audio_Connectors/Scart_adaptors.htm

complicated and confusing isn't it

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Hehe yes it is, though me being a cable idiot might help too

So lets see if I get it right. I got my tv, which has 2 scarts, 1 rgb which I hook my wii on too and a other scart that I use for my htpc which gives me less than stellar image quality btw. So If I understand it right I'll buy this thing:

And just hook that up to the real rgb, put my htpc and wii in there and the speakers on the sound things. Which wont work because that thing doesnt acutally understand 5.1.

When I think about it, RCA wont work either. That will give you 2 cables that need to go on your soundcard. But you cant do that because the line's are already taken by the 5.1 speaker set.

Wow, this really is hard

 

[Davros]

just realised you could get a tv card for your pc then you wouldnt need a tv and you could hook the wii up to it as well

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Well I would need the tv as I use it as the ''monitor'' for my htpc. But that shouldnt matter to much as you can just use only the s-video for that. Only thing im afraid of is that its not going to work so smoothly as I use mediaportal for my htpc and im not to sure of how well this works with tv cards in the sense of speed. Its already a bit slowish with loading video, I dont want slowness when im just changing channels.

 

[Blazkowicz]

I didn't realize you lose line in, that's a serious weakness. you could have another sound card only to use its line in, try that if you have an old one lying around?

not sure if the sound output on your pictured thing outputs the TV's sound or only sound from the peripherals, I'd ask before would I be to buy it.
playing a console through a TV card is not a good thing, this adds a latency that can spoil it (can on the order of one second)