[Jamis1979]

My friend got a smaller LCD television for Christmas. She isn't a wealthy individual, and isn't too much for spending a lot of money on technological consumer products. At this point she has a LCD TV, and older DVD/VCR player (RCA connections), and a basic Shaw cable box. She was also given a laptop recently that has an HDMI port on it.

I was hoping to find some kind of device that could be used to hook up all these items and then have one HDMI cord going up to her TV. Also, if I was to show her how to download .mkv/avi files she could watch movies if the device could decode that stuff from the laptop and send it to her TV so the audio and video would come out of her TV.

Any suggestions, and places in Canada or that will ship to Canada to buy it at?

 

[57]

Here's the FAQ on AVR features. What you want is an AVR that has HDMI inputs, that decodes HDMI audio and that transcodes (sometimes called upconverts) analogue video inputs to an HDMI output. There are probably some AVRs in the $3-400 range that can do this. I'm sure others here will have suggestions on specific makes/models.

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=76082

Useful post: http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=57741 FAQs, Search Tips, Optimization, etc.

 

[Jamis1979]

Yeah forsure, I hope some others will have some makes and models. That's mostly what I'm looking for. I know generally how this stuff works for the most part, but I'm a little out of the loop when it comes to makes/models/deals for current stuff.

 

[ScooterMcTavish]

If your purchaser is on a budget, and is going HDMI (laptop) in to the receiver than HDMI out to the TV, good models (and all available under $300 right now) are:
Denon AVR-391
Onkyo TX-SR308
Pioneer VSX-520K

However, 57 is right that if you want all analog devices to also feed via HDMI, you'll need to get out of the $200s and into the high $300s. Least expensive models that do this would be the Denon AVR-591 or the Pioneer VSX-920. If you go to the US regularly, I believe both of these models are substantially cheaper there. The 591 converts all analog signals to HDMI, whereas the 920 has an upconverting chipset.

To 57's point about the transcoding (upconverting), this can happen on the AVR, or your set itself will do it. I've heard people say an upconverting AVR is great - I've also heard others say it wasn't worth the cash. Regardless, people need to remember that it is difficult for the gear to put things in that aren't there, and a VHS tape on an HD TV always looks bad.