https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/810758366467824/
Wife is setting up her new house, wants a cheap 5.1 setup, and the above we can get for 70 eurs. Though it's not got HDMI in/out on the receiver. She has a modern smart TV.
The question is, can I use an HMDI to AV adaptor in this case? Would it affect the output quality? I read it should manage easy 1080 but just wanted to check.
It's not the ideal setup and all but she's on a serious budget and I'm helping by trawling marketplace for decent deals. For 70 euros, it's pretty damn good.
Don't bother with any HDMI convertors. For a start, any content other than maybe games play and using the TV as a PC screen is going to be protected by the anti-copy feature of HDMI called HDCP. Unless you pay for the more expensive convertors that spoof the source in to thinking it has a legitimate display chain, then you won't get anything worth displaying on a modern 4K TV. Composite video (the yellow connector) looks crap direct from a source. It looks even worse when it has been through some dodgy HDMI-> composite conversion.
HDCP will also prevent you from getting 1080p analogue signals. That's its whole point. They didn't want ordinary folk being able to rip off TV content to some sort of copy device, so HDCP stops the video output of any protected content being displayed. That's all of your Hollywood movies and most TV series pls anything streamed that hasn't come from some Herbert's camcorder/phone cam and uploaded to YouTube.
Even the content you can access and output at 1080p is going to hit a brick wall in that AV receiver. The video switching circuitry is from 1999/2000, and you might well find that it doesn't have the bandwidth to handle 1080p without softening the picture noticeably.
I could continue with more reasons to avoid trying to put video through a 20 year old Pioneer receiver, but really should have enough now to decide not to waste your tme and money on any kind of signal convertors.
A much better idea for a hook-up plan is to keep all the HDMI signals going to the TV. Let it deal with the picture part of things. The TV will also strip off audio and, if it has an Optical output, you can connect that to the Pioneer to get surround sound. In most cases, OTA TV, Satellite signals, Cable TV and anything streamed will have audio in either digital stereo (PCM) probably with Dolby Surround matrixed centre and rear surround signals, or if it is HD content then you should also get Dolby Digital in up to 5.1 surround. The TV should pass these signals to the Optical Output. You may need to have your missus check the Optical Output settings on the TV to select Auto or Bitstream/Dolby.
When the Pioneer sees a DD signal it should switch to Dolby Digital mode decoding automatically. When the signal is Stereo PCM then the amp will allow the selection of Dolby ProLogic decoding.
Any sources such as a DVD or Blu-ray player, or a games console, should be connected to the amp directly with either Optical or coax cable as appropriate. The reason is that very few TVs pass full DTS audio via the Optical out. Either the TV blocks it completely, or you get just stereo DTS with the annoyance that no sound comes out of the centre and surround channels. Bypassing the TV with a direct connection removes this blockage.
The graphic below shows an example of how things would connect. YMMV with the source devices, so use a little common sense to understand how to flex it according to the gear you have.
