Not sure if this is a good MMM question, but I'll ask it anyways. I recently bought a second TV for the basement*. Long story short, my son was getting old enough that I couldn't watch/play violent stuff around him, and thus I now have a TV in the basement. The upstairs has a surround sound system installed. I've got a Home Theater PC, PS3, PS4, DVD player, and (gasp) VCR to hook up. I'd really like a way to have one set of devices for both TVs. I'd like to be able to use the HTPC, PS3 & PS4 on either TV. I'm wondering if anyone has setup a system like that. I'm thinking of something like a MONOPrice Matrix 2x4 HDMI switch. I'm just weary of adding more complexity to my current system. I've got a 7 year old Harmony remote that makes the upstairs TV with the receiver easy enough for my wife to use, but adding in a Matrix switch...I dunno. Anyone ever setup a system like this before or have any advice? I'm a very technical person, but my wife is not.
I might like to setup surround sound on the downstairs TV, but that might be impossible. I've got an old Sony receiver that's in storage along with a set of speakers, but it's pre HD and only accepts a single optical or digital 5.1 channel signal. I could (in theory) hook up the basement TV via HDMI to the matrix HDMI switch and then route the audio from the TV to the receiver via optical cable. The problem I ran into (and why I replaced this old receiver) is that since the TV only has two speakers, when it negotiates over HDMI with the device, it says "I only have 2 channels, so only send me 2 channels of audio please!". It then outputs 2 channels to the receiver via the 5.1 optical link. The only time I would actually get "surround sound" was when I used the built in digital tuner for over the air broadcasts.
Depending on the final solution, I may try to relocate some/all of the devices to a closet/basement. I like the idea of minimizing the room down. Since 99% of our content is digital, we don't need to mess with optical disks unless we're ripping a new disc, and I can do that from any computer.
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*Yes, I know that having two TVs is two more than I need. I just want to be as efficient with my secondary devices as possible. I don't have cable/satellite, and we mostly watch Netflix/Amazon streaming. I've got a home server with hundreds of our DVD rips on it, and 100+ movies converted to Vudu/UV.