General A&V / multiple monitor question.

[JT!]

Here's my setup. My PC has a dedicated graphics and sound card. I currently have a 26" TV connected from the analogue DVI port to the tv's vga using the converter. And then I have a cheap monitor connected by the digital DVI port. I have my speakers plugged into the sound card.

I'd like to connect the my pc to another tv in a different room, essentially having 3 monitors at one time. These are my questions.

1. Should I use HDMI or the display port.

2. What would be the best way to transmit the sound as well as the picture to the tv in the other room.

3. What software could I use to send sound from different applications to different outputs?


I'm thinking along the lines of just straight up connecting it with the HDMI from the graphics card... however I'm not sure if the sound will go along with that seeing as though it'll be connected to the graphics card and not the mother board.


Any suggestions?

[MayImilae]

Display port is video only, you'd need to use an audio cable to channel the sounds to the TV. Use HDMI and you will transmit sound as well as video, the specifics of how that works depends on the GPU you own. What do you have?

HDMI is picky about the length of the cable. How far away is this TV?

[JT!]

Maybe about 20 feet, but the cable I will be using is 35ft.

MSI GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB.

[MayImilae]

Maybe about 20 feet, but the cable I will be using is 35ft.

That's very long, but well within the spec for HDMI. But you could encounter some additional latency than what you are used to, mostly from the TV.

As for setup, when installing the GeForce drivers make sure you install the digital audio component (if you used default settings you already did). Then you can use the nvidia control panel to turn on it's audio capabilities and make it appear as a sound device in windows, then set it as the default sound device in windows to send sound to it.

[JT!]

Thanks, I'll give it a shot tomorrow and will post results!

[lamedude]

Its an optional feature, but DP can do audio. I would expect anything with HDMI to have it.

If you're using TV speakers you're not going to be able to tell the difference between your sound card and TV's DACs so unless you need any of your soundcard's features just use HDMI.

[JT!]

Another question. How would I use the display port of the grahics card? Can you get a cable from display port to HDMI, or do I need a converter?

[JT!]

So looks like everything worked fine. My only issue is how to dictate what windows / programs output sound to the tv and which output to my speakers. Win 7 allows for you to switch between all the output sound devices, but there doesn't appear to be a way to switch them.

[MayImilae]

Win 7 allows for you to switch between all the output sound devices, but there doesn't appear to be a way to switch them.

Uh... what?

[JT!]

Yeah that didn't make sense at all. WHat I mean is, windows 7's volume mixer allows you to switch between different sound output to view which programs are using what output, but there doesn't seem to be a way to change them. For example spotify is using my speakers, but it won't let me switch it to the tv speakers. The only way I can appear to do it is by switching everything.