HD on the cheap
So, I finally got my new monitor, a BenQ G2222HDL, and I almost... almost have everything I need. I just realized I was missing one thing.
When I first ran my experiment, I bought about everything I needed to make my future setup work. Cable, I'd have to buy no matter what. An HDMI switch, yeah that'd be convenient. Also, a bunch of converters: an RCA to 3.5mm audio converter, a DVI-A to VGA adapter, and two DVI-D to HDMI adapters (a DVI-D female to HDMI female and a DVI-D male to HDMI female).
However, this plan was flawed, and now I know it was flawed in two ways rather than one. First, my current monitor (a Samsung Syncmaster 204B) wasn't HDCP compatible. I plugged in the PS3 to a converter and hooked it straight into the monitor, and nothing.
The second that I know now, is that the HDMI switch I bought only supports up to HDMI 1.3b. The Playstation 3 shoots out high-def video in the form of HDMI 1.4. I did a bunch of cable-swapping around today trying to find out why my new monitor still wasn't getting video from my PS3, while it was just fine with my XBox. When I finally realized that it was the switch (and only the switch) that was preventing video from getting to my monitor, I was a little disappointed, but then I suppose it's a lesson learned. So, to reiterate...
If you wish to run your Playstation 3 through a switch, make sure said switch supports HDMI 1.4, or you'll get nothing when you try to display things. Update 8 December, 2011: I actually can no longer confirm this, as I found out that the switch wasn't handling certain signals properly (I suspect HDCP was being dropped). See the post above. For the record, the one I used is the HDMI switch available at Monoprice, which only supports up to HDMI 1.3b. It would've been a great buy ($28 for a four-way HDMI switch) if it weren't for the fact that I can't use it with my PS3, so I'll have to look for another.
Right now, I'm having to ignore the switch, and I'm just going to do the classic plug-out/plug-in when I need to swap systems. Once I find an HDMI switch that supports the 1.4 standard, I'll no longer need to do this. Update 8 December, 2011: Actually, I got an HDMI 1.3 switch that works with my PS3. See the post above.
The whole thing looks like this.
As it turns out, I'm using all but one of the converters that I bought, so I really didn't waste any money on the experiment (though even if I did, it would've been ten bucks tops). Audio is being output from standard RCA, the converter I got does produce stereo sound (also got it from Monoprice). The only thing about the XBox360, though, is that the standard analog plugs for composite video physically block the HDMI port, but this can be gotten around (both requiring a bit of pocket change). Maybe I'll talk about it later, though.
