So, transformation part 2. After many delays… lets go through them. Ordered AVR and speakers last Thursday, was told they would be in on tuesday, speakers arrive today and amplifer due tomorrow. No follow up calls from them, nothing. Monitor… was apparently delivered to the wrong store, and so was sent back to the warehouse but arrived today and i picked it up after work.
So… first things first, my soundcard. Ended up getting the Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 4. Its the mid-range of what I need the soundcard to do. Basically since I wont be getting a DVD player for the moment, I need my PC to act as my media source – apart from Set-top box. So soundcard:
Going from left to right there is : Digital I/O, Line In, Mic In, Line Out 1, Line Out 2 and Line Out 3. The Line Outs are for fronts, rears and centre/subwoofer. Thats mainly for specific computer speaker setups. It came with a remote and receiver which is somewhat handy when sitting away from the computer.
On the same day, being yesterday, I grabbed a Digital I/O module. So this plugs into the white plug and gives me SPDIF IN and OUT with both Coaxial and Optical :
This currently has the optical coming out of my set-top into the SPDIF IN. Now today was supposed to be the biggest day, but that’ll be stretched till saturday, BUT i did get my monitor finally! The Benq FP241W:
Not a real flattering picture, but you have to see it in real life. Its big, stand is very sturdy, kind of neat and has all the inputs you could ever want… So there is DVI-D, D-SUB, HDMI, Component, S-Video, and Composite. There is also 3 USB ports, 2 on the side and one on the top. Resolution runs at 1920 * 1200 and handles 1080P. So to show you the size… here is my 15.4 inch Dell Inspiron 6000 next to the 24 inch. When i first saw this photo, i thought my laptop looked like a 12 inch next to a 19 inch:
Currently, its not running ata its full resolution because my graphic card can’t seem to handle it. Its a Geforce ti4200. So my alternative in the near future is to just hook up my desktop to a 17 or 19 inch LCD next to this one… and have both my laptops (when my MacBook Pro arrives) hooked up to the monitor. The Set-top is hooked up to the monitor via HDMI and the quality is soooooo sweet.
I have faced one problem so far with the Coaxial audio from my set-top which doesnt seem to work at all, but the optical works. So come saturday when the amplifer and speakers arrive, I will have to work it out. The audio is also quite soft. Apart from that, not a dead pixel to be seen, and it looks oh so nice from outside my room.
Here is just a few of sites that outline what I have bought and I guess explains some things about the digital I/O I have.
http://creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=205&product=14103
http://creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=16&product=1780
http://www.benq.com.au/products/LCD/?product=1010
http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=soundblaster&message.id=12170
More development to come, as well as photos, and if i get the time, a review of the things I have.
Written by Milton Lai