You need to completely remove the old graphics and HDMI drivers. This is especially true if the motherboard has ATI chipset with HDMI such as MSI 785GTM-E45 that uses Realtek audio chip and you have loaded Realtek’s HDMI driver. The Realtek’s HDMI driver does not work with ATI 5450 but if Realtek’s HDMI driver is present, Windows may use it instead of the ATI’s HDMI driver.

If you are not sure, check the device manager to see which driver is loaded for the ATI 5450. If it is the Realtek’s HDMI driver, you need to change the driver.

If ATI’s HDMI driver is loaded but you only have 2 ch. sounds, check the Windows’ sound manager under control panel. In Windows 7, the sound manager will show a list of sound devices. If ATI HDMI is not the only one, set it as default. If on the other hand, you don’t see ATI HDMI here, you don’t have the right driver loaded.

There is an obscure “configuration” button at the bottom of the sound manager. Whit ATI HDMI selected, click the configuration button. A new box will show up. The default is 2 channels. Select the proper number of the speakers and arrangement.

Once you get the right settings, the ATI 5450 works great. But since some Windows applications can and will make changes without inform the user, don’t assume these settings just need to be set once and forget it. If things worked for a while but switched back to two channel sound, double check these settings again. I have encountered a few times the settings been changed after auto Windows updates.

Also note, it is better to switched on the HDMI devices downstream from the HTPC such as receiver before the HTPC. If you turn on the HTPC first, the ATI HDMI audio driver may not be loaded and end up with no sound at all to the HDMI port.

Am I saying audio is a more important factor than video in HTPC? No. Not really. But consider today’s new generation of graphics chips from ATI, Intel or Nvidia all supports HD video playback that off loads from the CPU. Even new IGP on motherboard chip sets such as ATI 4200, Intel X4500 or GeForce 9300, they all able to play the HD DVD or Blu-Ray smoothly without the need of high power CPU. In fact, even older CPUs such as AMD Athlon 64×2 5200+ or Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 can play Blu-Ray nicely with those IGPs.

The HD audio that is part of the Blu-Ray experiences on the other hand is very different story. One can not assume just because the motherboard or the graphics card has a HDMI port on it and the manufactures mentions audio pass through, they will support DTS-HD MA and DD TrueHD. In fact, none of the current IGP chipset supports in.

The AMD’s ATI 4200 from the current 785 and 890 chipset is the worst as it only supports 2 channel PCM audio through HDMI. By itself it would not even support the pass through of basic 5.1 DTS or DD core! It require additional s/w and/or h/w support to do so.The new AMD 890 chipset is particular disappointing as AMD clearly do not want it is used as HTPC motherboard without the need of adding additional graphics card.

The Intel X4500 or the GeForce 9xxx (including the 9400 used by the Ion platform) is only marginally better than the ATI 4200 on audio. While they do support 8 channels LPCM output, they don’t support DTS-HD MA and DD TrueHD. Again, external h/w or s/w decoding is needed to decode the HD audio bit streams to LPCM. If s/w solution is used, it will place a heavy burden to the CPU which requires more powerful and more expensive CPU and possibly memory too. In addition, although some people argue that LPCM conversion done right will preserve the lossless nature of the DTS-HD MA or DD TrueHD, but that will be putting a lot of faith to who ever is implementing the decoding in h/w or s/w to do the right thing not to cut corners to cut cost or gain performance or both. I for one rather want to see the original bit streams pass though the HDMI port to the receiver.

If none of those motherboards with built-in IGP can support native HD audio bit stream, then none of them, at least not by themselves is suitable for HTPC application. Built-in IGP or HDMI on the motherboard is therefore not a factor or even desirable when choosing a motherboard because of possible higher cost and power consumption for the parts that are useless.

While some of the new Intel i series CPU had built-in GPU that do support DTS-HD MA or DD TrueHD, The CPU plus motherboard combo is far more expensive than necessary. A better or less cost solution is to use older or lowly motherboard and CPU combo that using older DDR2 memory can be had around $50 is adequate.

When it comes to add-on graphics card, the real sections are between ATI and Nvidia. I was very surprised to find out none of their new generation of graphics cards from GeForce 240 on down supports native DTS-HD MA and DD TrueHD. They all require conversion to LPCM. As stated before, I don’t consider this conversion is acceptable for today’s HTPC at all. I did not bother to look Nvidia’s line above the GeForce 240 as their costs are way beyond what I have in mind for good budget HTPC.

On the ATI side, I did not look at their older 3xxx or 4xxxx series as the ATI 4200 did not give me a good impression. The ATI 5450 is the current entry model for the 5xxxx series and it is prefect for budget HTPC. First and foremost, it supports DTS-HD MA and DD True-HD pass through. Second, it and no fan and therefore no fan noise. Third it cost less than $50. While ATI 5450’s game playing ability is questionable, it plays all HD video files smoothly and with minimum demand to the CPU.

The advantage of using low power graphics card, CPU and motherboard means there is no need for high wattage power supply too. I used a 500W power supply not because I need one but rather it was no sale for $20. Some people may say these cheap power supplies’s real wattage does not even come close to the advertised number. But even if this power supply’s true wattage is only half of the 500W advertised, it is still more than enough to power my HTPC. The entire setup with ATI 5450, AMD Althon II x3 440, MSI 785GTM-E45 motherboard, two 1.5TB hard drivers, two optical drivers and uses less than 140W when playing Blu-Ray movies. My older CPU and motherboard combo uses even less power.

Speaking of AMD Althon II X3 440 and the MSI motherboard combo, I got them on sale and at the time I thought the MSI motherboard hat uses AMD 785 chipset will support DTS-HD MA etc. If I knew what I know now, I would have just added the ATI 5450 to an old PC setup that has AMD Althon 64X2 5200+ CPU as it can play the HD media just as smooth as the real work is done by the ATI 5450.

For HDTV tuner, I used a USB external tuner from Kworld. While I can never get the QAM tuner to work, it is not a great lost as the Windows 7’s MCE doesn’t support QAM and the local cable’s QAM offering is worst than ASTC any way.

The total cost of building this HTPC is very low as most of the components came from existing PC. As I have mentioned before, if I had know better, all I really needed to change the existing PC to HTPC is the ATI 5450 card that cost $40. Even in case I need to start from ground up, the cost would be about the same as a TVIX 6620N or Dune Prime but capable to do more than either of them can provided.

For people who do want to assemble a HTPC from ground up, they can get a decent desktop PC for around $300 from many retail places as long as the PC has empty PCIe slot to put in a ATI 5450 and that’s it.
As for media player software, the Media Center that came with Windows Vista and Windows 7 although not great but is more than functional. If you buy a retail version of the Blu-Ray drive, it is also likely to be bundled with player software that can play both Blu-Ray and DVD.

Bottom line, there is no need to get latest greatest CPU or GPU to build a great HTPC. Video play back for HD content is widely supported even by entry level GPU or motherboard IGP that came to market in the last year or so. HD audio support on the other hand is different story. Most of if not all of the current motherboard IGP and low end to mid range Nividia solution is not capable of full HD audio support. Some thing to watch out when building a HTPC.

To solve the lack of HD audio problem, it is obvious I need to add a graphics card that has the following features,

• Has HDMI port.
• Has hardware HD video decoding function so playback of HD video contents such as HD DVD or Blu-Ray or HDTV will not burden the CPU.
• Support HD audio streams, DTS-HD MA, DD TrueHD and 8 ch. LPCM in particular pass though HDMI port.
• Cost less than $60

Being able to play PC games on the other hand is not a requirement to me. None of the current Nvidia cards in this price range meet the requirement. The best they can do is to support 8 ch. LPCM which is not acceptable. The ATI on the other hand has a number of cards fit the requirement. I choose the PowerColor AX5450 with 512MB of DDR3 memory because ATI 5450 is a newer chip that consume less power and fanless which means no fan noises. Priced around $40 is also a big plus.

The package of the card looks more like a video game box than graphics card and the content is bare minimum. Even the CD looks like a generic ATI CD without any PowerColor added content.

Installation does require either temporary adding a second monitor or switch connection from the TV to regular monitor. This is because my TV only supports 1080i and that is not in the Windows’ generic monitor resolutions. After the first boot up and sign on to Windows, in this case, Windows 7 will pick up the card and associated it with the right driver, including the HD Fury driver I made for the 1080i resolution. Once this is done, the second monitor is not required.

Windows 7’s Aero score jumped from 3.8 of motherboard’s ATI 4200 to 5.0. But compares to GeForce 9300’s 4.7, this really wasn’t that great. HD DVD and Blu-Ray video play back are smooth as expected are smooth but then even the motherboard’s ATI 4200 is capable smooth playback of HD videos.

Audio playback through HDMI however, did not go well. The A/V receiver’s light indicates I only got 2 ch. LPCM out of the new card. Some thing was not right. As it turns out, it was motherboard’s Realtek HDMI driver is interfering. I need to completely uninstall the Realtek’s HDMI driver and then install ATI’s HDMI driver. Once set correctly, my receiver now receives the proper DTS-HD MA and DD TrueHD streams over the HDMI.

As a side note, some people complained that if HDTV resolution is selected, the ATI driver will default to scale the graphics image to 95% to compensate possible overscan. While I did not encounter this problem, I actually tried manually to scale the image down a bit to see if I can use this function to compensate HD Fury’ left shift problem. Well, it sorts of works but in return I now have a sizeable black bar on the right and less noticeable on top and bottom. Not very desirable tradeoff to say the least so I change it back and just to resign to live with HD Fury’s lift shift problem.

The ATI 5450 is a great low cost solution for HTPC.

Pro:

• Low cost. Current retail is about $40-$50.
• Fanless. No fan noises.
• Have HDMI, DVI and VGA ports.
• Low power consumptions. Does not require additional PCI power.
• Support HD audio format such as DTS-HD MA and DD TrueHD pass through HDMI port.

Con:

• Performance for none media video related regular graphics function is on the low side. 5.0 for Windows 7 Aero score is just a little than IGP like GeForce 9300.
• The PowerColor version is very barebone.

As whole, I am very happy with the ATI 5450 for HTPC. In fact, because most of the A/V decoding job of a HTPC is handled by this card, a lesser motherboard and CPU will do. There is no need or even desirable to get a motherboard with on board video for example. The Athlon II X3 is overkill for the job too. Even an old Althon 64 5200+ will do. ATI 5450 is the core of an inexpensive yet flexible and powerful modern HTPC.

There are two main problems with HD Fury. First, it has a left shift problem that shifts video images to the left a little. While the maker of the HD Fury has a later version claimed to have solve this left shift problem, they cost too much and most of time I don’t miss the “missing” left side so I just live with the problem.
The second problem has to deal with something called EDID. EDID is a data stream format used by HDMI devices to report its capabilities to sources so that the source will only send material such as 1080i video that the device is capable to handle. The problem is since the old TV predates HDMI, it has no EDID to pass on. HD Fury instead passes 1080p as its capabilities and therefore the problem as the TV can only handle 1080i. A source like Blu-Ray player will think the TV can handle 1080p and therefore sending 1080p to the TV. It is very easy to see things will fall apart quickly. Again, the maker of the HD Fury has a later generation that suppose let user select the right resolution to report instead of fixed on 1080p. Luckily, most, if not all the Blu-Ray players have a manual resolution override to send 1080i instead so this has not being a big problem to me up until now.

Connecting a HDMI based HTPC to HD Fury on the other hand, is problem as there is no easy resolution through remote or front panel on the PC. If HD Fury reports the TV can do 1080p, at initial startup, Windows will read the EDID from HD Fury and set the resolution to 1080p and the TV screen will be all scrambled. One solution of course is attach another monitor via DVI or VGA to the PC and change the resolution but this is not very practical if needs to be done every time to turn on or reboot the PC.
The maker of the HD Fury offers a solution to re-program the HD Fury’s to report 1080i instead of 1080p. To do this, one needs to download the new EDID data and use software called PowerStrip to program the HD Fury. While PowerStrip is available as trial shareware, only the paid registered version is capable to program the HD Fury as an “unofficial” function and there is not guarantee it will work. If it doesn’t the software is none refundable.

Luckily, there is an alternative free solution to the HD Fury EDID problem if the reason to re-program the HD Fury is to connect a HDMI HTPC. The PowerStrip’s maker also makes a free utility called MonInfo. I used the MonInfo to read the 1080i limited EDID file from HD Fury’s people and output it Windows INF file. On the first time the HTPC is to connect to the HD Fury, a second monitor will help to ensure the right INF file is pickup by Windows when it sees the HD Fury as new device and trying to install drive for it. It is important to get Windows to install the INF file we just made as the driver for HD Fury. Once the right driver is loaded, we are all set. Removed the second monitor, that it.

It needs to be mentioned that HD Fury’s left shift problem now is more of an issue with the Windows than previous with HD DVD or BD movies. It also need to mention that a 1080i display is not suitable for anything other than media file play back as regular Windows fonts become too small and too blurry. Windows’ MCE on the other hand works quite well as it uses much bigger fonts.

Download

• MonInfo
• EDID file for HD Fury

After I updated the TV with the HD Fury to accept HDMI signal and the Yamaha RX-V665 for the new HD audio formats such as DTS-HD MA and DD TrueHD, it is time to revisit the HTPC setup. Before jump into a new HTPC setup however, media players has gaining popularity in recent years and it certainly has its advantages being more like consumer electronics than PC and possible easier for day to day use in a home theater environment.

After looking into the many available media players on the market such as WD TV Live, I was disappointed to found out none of the sub $200 players are capable to act as DVR. In other words, if I get one of these players, I still need the PC to record TV program. Another problem these media player is most of them are not capable to handle HD audio formats. Take TVIX 6620N for example, I have considered it because it can function as DVR. The problem is the TVIX is not only very expensive but also not able to pass through DTS-HD MA and DD TrueHD. For something cost close to $400, I expect more. In addition, TVIX’s local dealer has a rather unfriendly return policy and all the unhappy user feedback on the web make me to give up even give it a try. Then, there are the equally expensive Dune players that seem to be able to handle the DTS-HD HA and DD TrueHD but there is DVR option available. For the price those TVIX and Dune guys ask for, I can build a HTPC and be able to handle both DVR and HD audio.

While it is true, the HTPC can have a lot of issues, lacking proper remote friendly UI is just the most obvious. On the other hand, all those media players seem have their own set of problems too. One just has to search the web to see for example so many unhappy users about them too.

At the end, I went back to the HTPC option. After the failed trial with XFX GeForce 9300, I have settled with MSI 785GTM-E45 motherboard but only to find out it cannot do HD audio either. The great thing about HTPC is it is expandable and I am not depends on the media player companies to make good on their product. In this case, I added an ATI 5450 graphics and now my HTPC can do both DVR and handle HD audio. To me, this is a better choice by far than any media player on the market today.

Follow up:

• As of 4/15/2010, TVIX now has an “updated” 6600N+ selling in China using an “updated” Realtek 1283+ chipset that they “hint” will support HD audio down the line but as of today even this “new” upgraded 6600N+ still does not support DD TrueHD and DTS-HD MA. People who brought the “old” 6600N seems out of luck ! If you think TVIX’s customers got short change, the US dealers did not even mention this “new” model!
• Also as of 4/15/2010, it seems models from Dune has problems with many Blu-Ray disc.

I was thinking building a HTPC for some time. My first choice for a HTPC motherboard the XFX GeForce 9300 did not work out when it went dead in just three days. Luckily, right after I returned it, there was a sale on a AMD Athlon II X3 440 CPU and MSI 785GTM-E45 motherboard combo for just $10 more than the XFX board by itself. I naturally jumped on the deal.

Compares to the XFX GeForce 9300 board I just returned, it only has 4 USB ports on the back panel and there is no eSATA port. It does however have HDMI; DVI and VGA video ports. More importantly, unlike the XFX board only has PS/2 keyboard port; this MSI board has both PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports.

On board, the MSI MB also has 6 SATA ports and unlike the XFX only has 4 of them active on default BIOS settings; all 6 SATA ports are active here. But equall bad as the XFX board, the SATA ports are also facing side rather than up. To make up for the short fall of USB ports compares to the XFX MB on the back panel, this MB has 4 two ports USB connectors on board compare to three on the XFX so the total max. Possible USB ports for both boards are 12 if one buys USB back or front panel brackets to bring the ports out. One thing not so great aboutthis board is it only has two memory slots but this is ok with me as I don’t plan to use more than 4GB of memory any way. What is more important to me is this board at least has one IDE port that XFX lacks. This is important for the old IDE based HD DVD drive .

Installation

After the board is installed, updating the driver is quite easy as MSI has an on-line update utility that will check for the latest drivers and BIOS. Updating the BIOS is easy. This factor alone makes the MSI board a far better choice than the XFX.

The BIOS is able to unlock unused core from certain AMD CPUs. Of course, being able to unlock a locked core does not mean it will functon correctly. I tried on my X3 and it hangs which means the 4th core is really a bad one to begin with.

The on board video, ATI 4200 turn out to be somewhat disappointing. I first tried the board with an AMD Athlon 64 5200+ I have. The Windows 7’s Aero scores in a low 3.8. In comparison, the GeForce 9300 of the XFX MB with an Intel Core Duo E4300 that in general performs around the same as the AMD CPU gets a 4.7 Aero score. When I put in the AMD Athlon II X3 440, the Aero score still a low 4.3.   Even when over clock t he ATI 4200 from 400MHz to 700MHz, the Aero still not able to compete with the GF9300 with an Aero score of 4.5. It is certainly a disappointing performance to say the least. Especially when the AMD 785 chipset is a newer chipset and it’s ATI 4200 graphics processor is AMD’s top IGP. Over clocking, at least for the on board video is easier and more stable than the XFX board.

Regardless of the Aero performance, the ATI 4200 is capable to playback both HD DVD or Blu-Ray video without any problem. HD audio on the other hand turn out to be very different story. The MSI’s web site somewhat imply this board supports HD audio. What they neglect to make it clear is that HD audio only means the on board Realtek’s audio chip supports 8 ch. analog output. The HDMI port on the other hand only supports two ch. stereo LPCM sounds.

HDMI Setup

After first boot up, the Windows 7 will install the default HDMI driver automatically. Unfortunately, the default Microsoft HDMI driver only supports 2ch audio. Furthermore, the MSI driver CD split the HDMI driver from the chipset driver and requires separate installation. Even after install the ATI HDMI driver from the CD, I still only got 2 ch. Audio. Upon further on-line search, I was dismayed to found out that the AMD 785 chipset only capable to support 2 ch. LPCM output. An updated Realtek HDMI driver on the Realtek’s web site allows pass through of none HD audio stream such as regular 5.1 ch. DD and DTS sound tracks. After download and install the Realtek HDMI driver however, I still only got 2 ch. PCM output. Its only looking into the matter further, I found out there is an option on the Windows Sound manager that need to be selected to support pass through of none LPCM sound tracks. There is NO documentation that I can find on either MSI, AMD or Realtek ‘s web sites to state very clearly what is supported and how to make best use of the on board HDMI connection!

Summary and Conclusion

Pro:

• The board is more stable than the XFX GeForce 9300 board before it.
• MSI has a much better support web site and on-line update driver update mechanism.
• There is a printed manual.
• Able to unlock unused core of AMD CPUs.
• Reasonably easy to over clock for the onboard ATI 4200.
• HDMI, DVDI and VGA video output.
• Total 12 USB and 6 SATA ports.

Con:

• HDMI only supports 2 ch. LPCM audio. Even with updated Realtek HDMI driver, it can only support pass though of older 5.1 ch. DD or DTS sound tracks. No HD audio.
• Only 2 memory slots.
• Only 4 USB ports on the back panel. One needs breakout brackets to bring out the rest.
• No SPDIF port on the back panel.
• Performance of the ATI 4200 even over clocked is no match to GeForce 9300.

This MSI 785GTM-E45 is a reasonably priced board with decent features and performance. The big surprise and disappointment is the AMD 785 chipset only supports 2 ch. audio over HDMI. It really shows AMD really don’t care that much about design a chipset that can support modern HTPC applications. As far as I can tell, even their new flagship chipset 890, is still unable to support HD audio. Of course, AMD is not alone being guilty on this regard as Nvidia and Intel are no better.   

For people who are happy with regular DD or DTS sound tracks, this is a good board for an all in one setup. If you want DTS HD MA or DD TrueHD however, you still require having an add-on graphics for that.

When I first got the Magnavox NB530MGX I was using an older Pioneer receiver that lack of HDMI connection which means I was not able to decode the HD audio formats. I was using the coaxial digital output of the NB530 to the receiver. The result of course is as good or as bad as regular DD or DTS.

By coincident, right after I got the NB530, I stumbled upon a great deal on Yamaha RX-V665 receiver. As a receiver, the Yamaha RX-V665 has a rather mediocre power supply and even worse power amp section but if use as a pre-amp and processor, it is quite decent. Anyway, connecting the NB530MGX to the RX-V665 is straight forward; all is required is the HDMI cable.

The NB530MGX does not have HD audio decoder but it can pass the HD audio bitstream when HDMI HD audio output is selected. The Yamaha RX-V665 detects and decodes DTS HD Master or  DD TrueHD or for that matter, PCM without any problem.

Speaking of decoding HD audio, many more expensive Blu-Ray players besides adding what I view as less than useless BD live function, they also added HD audio decoding. On the other hand, most if not all the sub $300 players even most of the sub $400 players do not have multi channel analog outputs. If a player does not have multi channel analog output then what is the use to decode the HD audio inside the player? The need to have the player to do in player decoding is for those older receiver is not capable to decode the HD audio, most of which does not even have HDMI input. Without analog output, the decoded HD audio bitstream is of no use for those older receiver, as those greedy studios would not allow HD audio stream be sent over the coaxial or optical digital I/O. While it is true there are some early HDMI days receiver has the HDMI input for PCM stream but does not have ability to decode HD audio, their number are far fewer than receivers either do not have the HDMI connections or the newer ones like the Yamha RX-V665 that is capable to decoding. The question then is why pay for something most people don’t need? Even for someone like me who did not own a HDMI HD audio capable receiver when I got the Blu-Ray player, I would not want to pay the extra to have built-in decoder. I would rather save the money to get a receiver that does. It does not have sense when you have more than one HD audio capable devices each has its own decoder when all is required is one set in the receiver.

I only have a small issue with the remote in the sense I think the FF/RR and chapter skip keys can be better arranged and somewhat bigger. As for the NB530MGX itself, I am quite happy about it. True, it is profile 1.1 and does not have Ethernet connection and that’s fine as I consider the BD Live even the Java stuff is more harm than good as they are the causes of most of the incompatibilities among Blu-Ray world. As mentioned, the unit does not decode HD audio, which is good as I don’t want to pay for something I don’t want or need. As long as it can send raw HD audio bitstream to the receiver, I am happy. The player is also a very good upscaler for regular DVD. In fact, some of the good DVD looks far better than those poorly made BD!

By looking inside the player, I would say there is more room to cut cost and yet made the player even more reliable and possible performed better. I would not be surprised to see the next generation of this player lower the price by another $10 or even $20. But if you don’t want to wait, $98 is a good deal.

Fry’s this week has a generic 10’ HDMI cable for sale at $1.99! Granted, this is a sales price and the regular price is $7.99 at Fry’s. Although at $7.99 this cable may no longer be a bargain compares to the cable by Monoprice but this is still a good price if you look at the $50; $80 even over $100 cable from shady  companies like Monster.

For $1.99, this cable is reasonably well made. The two ends are wrapped with foam sheet and inside they are further protected by plastic caps. The connectors are gold plated.

When compares to Monoprice’s $4.74 (qty 1) 10’ HDMI cable (white one on the right), it is quite obvious the Monoprice’s cable is superior, but does the $1.99 works?

I have tried to use the cable with several different devices with various audio and video settings all works WITHOUT any problem!

This $1.99 came packaged inside cheap plastic bag. While it is certainly not the flashy $50-$100 cable packaging, do you want to pay up to 50x just to have a pretty box to look at? Some people brought the propaganda of the shady companies and retailers into a false thinking the more expensive the cable, the better they are. While it is true we can make better cable than this $1.99 or even Monprice’s $4.74 cable and it probably will cost a little more but at $100? HDMI cable is NOT a high tech thing that some companies has “black art” secret to make it “better”. Further, shady company like Monster is just a marketing machine. Although I never believe their marketing gimmick, a few years back when a retailer was going  out  of business, they sold they inventory cheap and I brought couple Monster RCA cables at Radio Shack prices. Unfortunately, both of them failed in the first and second year of use. When I opened them up, I was shocked to find out how poorly those cables were made! Those Monster cables were not even worth what Radio Shack’s prices.  Don’t be fooled.

HDMI has become more and more important. Not just because HDMI simplified A/V connections, equally or even more important is the evil HDCP DRM. Without HDCP, the DVD players are not allowing to upscale video beyond 480P; even I have paid the full price for the DVD movie.  Without HDCP, the Blu-Ray players are not able to output HD audio.

Anyway, in order to get upscaled video for my old Mitsubishi VS-60111, I used the HDFury gizmo to convert DVI to RGB. The problem is HDFury only has one input and I have more than one HDMI devices.  Since my old Pioneer AV receiver does not have any HDMI connection, it is obvious I need a HDMI switcher. After searching on the web, I settled on the Monoprice HDMI switcher. At $20+tax+shipping  for a refurbished unit, it is a low cost option with very low risk.

When I receive the unit, the packaging is better than I expected. Although I brought the refurbished one, it came with retail box.  Package came with the following,

• The unit itself
• Power supply
• Remote
• Remote battery

What was really surprising is the unit is made of metal casing instead of plastic that is common to device at this price range.

Setup and connecting the unit is straight forward. Connect all the input and output HDMI and then the power supply and it works! I have tried Toshiba A3 HD DVD; Magnavox NB530MGX Blu-Ray; Oppo 980H DVD and LG RC797T all works without any problem. While some people may prefer auto sensing switch, I prefer the manual remote way of the Monoprice unit as I may have more than one device on at the any given time.

It is very important to note that this Monoprice is a powered switch meaning the input is buffered and amplified. Since some HDMI devices are very picky, a none powered HDMI switch may fail to work. Case and point is after I got the Yamaha RX-V665, I thought I can remove the Monoprice HDMI switch from the signal chain, I was wrong. Apparently HDFury is so picky that the output stage of the Yamaha RX-V665 does not have enough driving capability to drive the HDFury and the TV was not able to get stable video signal to lock on. As soon as I put the Monoprice switch in between Yamaha receiver and the HDFury, the TV picture came back as good as ever.

Bottom, this unit is an excellent value. Even right now I am only using the switch as powered buffer, it is well worth for the price just for this function alone. If you are looking for a HDMI switch, this unit should be a top choice.