Topic: Home Theater setup help

[airjao]

Not sure if I'm posting in the right forum, pa-move na lang po if ever.

My current setup for watching movies is thru my PC connected via HDMI to our 50'TV right beside it, and I have 5.1 analog speakers connected to my PC for surround sound, with my movies mainly in mkv stored in my 2TB Seagate external drive.

Problem ko now is we're renovating the house, and maghihiwalay na yung PC and TV namin. So iniisip ko how I can watch movies now on our TV. I tried to research and came up with these options:

1. NMT - ito talaga yung first choice ko. But problem is gusto ko surround sound, but I can't use my 5.1 speakers since analog lang siya and lahat ata ng NMT is Optical and HDMI ang audio. Apparently I'll need an AV receiver, but I don't think I can afford those. Budget ko lang kasi is 10k for everything.

2. HTIB - connect ko na lang yung external drive ko to one of these that can play MKVs and I would have surround sound. Downsides are I think mas mapili sa files mga ganito compared to NMTs, so hassle pag di kaya iplay. And less features syempre.

So what should I go for? Any suggestions? Salamat sa tulong mga master 

[uvax]

There are NMTs like the PCH and Mede8er with analog L-R stereo outputs. You can use your speakers with those but will be limited to stereo sound only. You can save up to buy an AV receiver for later.

[airjao]

Thanks for the suggestion. What's the cheapest AVR you can recommend? Maybe I can squeeze a little more from the budget if I can afford it. I'm not an audiophile, so as long as I can hear surround sound I'm good.

[uvax]

Entry level AVRs are in the 25k-30k range. Check the Marketplace section as there might some good deals there on second hand AVRs.

If you're just after movie playback why don't you consider building another cpu for htpc use. You're already used to this kind of setup anyway. Onboard graphics of current motherboard chipsets are more than adequate for video playback. You'll probably spend around 15k for an AMD quad-core build.