AV Receivers and Games Consoles?

[F3RNY7]

Hi Guys

Quick question....

I'm getting an AVR soon (never had one before) and thought it was just a simple case of plugging the inputs into the AVR then having just the one HDMI cable from the AVR to TV.

However my friend informs me I'll need to connect the games console directly to the TV, rather than go through the AVR, as otherwise I'll have to manually put the TV into game mode every time I use the console as you can only assign each input on the TV as either game mode or not. So basically the TV will not know whether I'm using the Virgin box or the Xbox and I'll have to manually toggle between game mode and normal mode.

Is this correct?

That being the case, how do I go about getting the audio from the console from the amp/speakers? Connect the amp to the console via optical cable?

Or am I missing something?

Thanks

[anonymous-user]

Your friend is wrong. Most modern AV receivers have multiple HDMI inputs so all you need to do is plug all your sources into the receiver and run one HDMI output to your TV. It's dead simple.

Here's the back on mine. Note 7 inputs (one called 'Game'), 2 outputs.

[F3RNY7]

wormus said:

Your friend is wrong. Most modern AV receivers have multiple HDMI inputs so all you need to do is plug all your sources into the receiver and run one HDMI output to your TV. It's dead simple.

Here's the back on mine. Note 7 inputs (one called 'Game'), 2 outputs.

It's not a question of the NUMBER of inputs on the receiver, it's the fact that it's only one input on the TV.

Game mode on my TV can be assigned to each individual input. So if all inputs go into the AVR, then go out to the TV as one input, game mode must either be on or off for that particular input.

Do you see what I mean? The TV won't know whether I'm using the Virgin Box or the Xbox and thus I'll have to toggle game mode manually on each time I use the console.

The setup at the moment (with no AVR) is both Virgin Box and XBOX go to the TV as separate inputs, which means HDMI1 (Virgin) is set in "normal" mode, and HDMI2 (Xbox) is set in "game" mode.

If there's only one input to the TV (with an AVR) then game mode must either be on or off, the TV will not be able to switch automatically between the two unless I'm mistaken.

[vetrof]

What type of remote control are you using? I have an old Harmony One, when I press my programmed 'game' on the remote it turns on the Playstation, amp and TV. I'm pretty sure I could set it up to change any paramaters I want with a single entry.

[stargazer30]

Why does the TV need to be game mode? I run my xbone via my AV amp and the AV amp switches all my stuff to a single HDMI to the TV and it works fine. I can set the AV amp to basically do nothing to the xbone input, no upscaling etc.. just pipe the video straight through to reduce any latency.

[F3RNY7]

stargazer30 said:

Why does the TV need to be game mode? I run my xbone via my AV amp and the AV amp switches all my stuff to a single HDMI to the TV and it works fine. I can set the AV amp to basically do nothing to the xbone input, no upscaling etc.. just pipe the video straight through to reduce any latency.

I've always used the xbone in game mode on the TV as it makes a noticeable difference in terms of latency and quality of the picture vs when it's off. Haven't really played around with it much other than when I got it, but having game mode on makes a huge difference.

[anonymous-user]

Can't you just manually switch game mode on via the remote when you need it?

[Dromedary66]

F3RNY7 said:

Haven't really played around with it much other than when I got it, but having game mode on makes a huge difference.

In that case one option is to get an AVR with 2 HDMI outputs e.g an Denon AVR-X3100W is good value