Entertainment Setup Questions

[Bubbleman82]

Hi all

I've been a long time reader but this is my first post. Not sure where to put it as its pretty general. Ive seen some pretty knowledgeable people on here so I decided to give posting my question a shot. So here it goes.

Basically I have some question about a proposed set up I have in mind. Here is a diagram:

Here are my questions:
1) Will the cable box->receiver->monitor work? From my understanding the TV tuner is in the cable box so the receiver will be fed SD cable, which the receiver will upconvert to 1080p. Are there any potential problems that will make this not work? will the picture be stretched/ squished in any way?

2) Another question that I have is related to switching between sources. I plan to use this as a second monitor for my Macbook Pro, and have the dock on the 2209WA. When switching away from the computer input on the receiver, will the external monitor still be registered as active is OSX, leaving the dock and all my windows on the external monitor? If so, how would I be able to fix this?

3) Any other problems that jump out at you about the proposed setup?

Sorry if this is hard to understand, its hard to articulate what I'm actually trying to ask. Just want to make sure everything will work together before I pull the trigger on buying all this stuff.

Thanks in advance.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

as for the first question.. what cable box is it? is it the motorolla box that comcasts uses? seeing as how you have a 22" display you would want to change the output size from the cable box to 720p and change the receiver to output as 720p as well.. it wont fill the whole screen but you wont get stuck with giant black bars on the top or bottom..
as for the second question.. does the macbook only have a DVI connection? if it has a VGA connection you can directly connect it to the display instead of having to use the receiver.. then you can just use the display switch on the monitor to switch back and forth.. because with the setup you plan to use you will not be able to look at the macbook and watch tv from the cable box at the same time.. you can only use 1 input/output at a time..

outside of the problems i listed in the section above this.. no there really shouldnt be any issues.. unless what i wrote above contradicts what you were hoping to do..


also to note i believe only HDMI allows for the AVR to upconvert to 1080p so using the composite from the cable box to the receiver would not allow the AVR to upconvert it to 1080p.. im not totally sure on this part but i believe thats how it works..

 

[Bubbleman82]

Thanks for the reply

I'm *pretty* sure this is the cable box (not at college right now, where this will be set up, so i cant really check):

When you say it wont fill the whole screen, do you mean that there will be a black bar all the way around the picture? If that's the case i think Id rather just have the two bars on the top and bottom.

As for the second part, perhaps I can state what I mean in a different way. The Macbook only has DVI output. I suppose I could use a VGA adapter to use the other input on the monitor but I guess my question still stands. I plan to have my Macbook open to use the onboard display as well as the one connected via DVI. So, if the source on the monitor is from the computer, and then I switch it to say, the cable, will the Macbook still see the external display as attached, causing all my windows and dock to remain on the external display? Sorry this question is so specific, just something that crossed my mind as a potential problem.