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Using laptop for music and picures

#1
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7/19/08 at 12:04pm
  • Joined: July 2008
  • Post Count: 7
I am trying to setup my laptop to play digital music through my ONKYO tx-sr605 receiver and show pictures through my LG TV. I connected my VGA to the tv directly and pictures look great. I connected mini to RGA cables to the CD input on the receiver. It works, but not very loud. I am trying to get this setup so I never have to touch the laptop. it is currently in a docking station. Anybody trying this that could give some advice? Also any ideas about the low volume level, i mean, i can get it loud, but it should be shaking the walls.
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#2
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7/20/08 at 4:59am
  • Joined: May 1999
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Re: Using laptop for music and picures

Are you trying to use Coax digital audio, or analog?

Either way, check for volume controls all throughout the laptop. Particularly if it's a Windows machine, there are probably about a dozen places that might affect the output levels.

Leo
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#3
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7/20/08 at 5:03am
  • Joined: July 2008
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Re: Using laptop for music and picures

I guess analog, the standard audio output from the laptop split into RCA. I maxed the volume in Windows as well. Thanks.
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#4
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7/20/08 at 5:44am
  • Joined: August 2000
  • Location: Southaven, MS
  • Post Count: 4,494

Re: Using laptop for music and picures

Your audio output on the laptop may not have enough pre-amp voltage to drive your system to "shaking the walls" levels that you want. That could be either your laptop's sound card or your music was not created/recorded at the proper level.

As for not touching the laptop during your music and picture viewing, how will you control it? Wireless mouse? Remote control? One of those nifty gyro-mouse/presentation things?

Why not use a dedicated network device to do this? There are dozens on the market that do music, music/pictures and music/pictures/movies. The big network players like D-Link and Netgear have them as well as the smaller players like Buffalo, etc. There are companies dedicated to these devices like Popcorn Hour Media Tank. And then there are a bunch of un-tried devices that start around $50. Even some DVD players do this. Just plug a USB drive into the port on the player and you are all set.

Finally, what format is your music stored in? Wave? Lossless AAC, WMA, Og, FLAC? A lossy compression format? If so, what bit rate? What kind of system are you using for playback?

-Robert
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#5
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7/20/08 at 8:02am
  • Joined: July 2008
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Re: Using laptop for music and picures

Music is mostly from ripped CD's in .mp3 format. I have a wireless USB remote control for the laptop which works pretty well.

AS far as the music output, my PC speakers in my office, Klipsch 2.1 really rock playing from the same mp3 files. My home theater speakers are vastly superb but lack the punch of the desktop PC speakers. Could be some settings on the receiver?

I thought about the wireless devices you were mentioning to sync directly from PC to Receiver, but most I see dont have any visual control, mostly at the mercy of what is playing/showing on the PC upstairs. Do you know of any that solve that problem?

Thanks for your input.
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#6
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7/21/08 at 5:50am
  • Joined: August 2000
  • Location: Southaven, MS
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Re: Using laptop for music and picures

You can't compare PC speakers to a real receiver. There is no real standard for PC speakers while quality receivers are all expecting the same levels from the source components.

You also mention 'vastly superb' speakers. Did you rip your MP3's at a high bit rate? If not, you will be able to hear the compression artifacts while replaying the music.

As for visual control, what are you talking about? If you had a 300 disc CD changer, you wouldn't have a display. You would have play, pause, track skip and disc skip. With the media player, it would be similar except each folder is treated like a disc. I have over 1,200 CD's ripped to WMA 320kbps. The folder structure is /artist/cd title/track numtrack title.wma. I think some of those players had the ability that is similar to the Pioneer stereo in my car. It will display the ID3 tag in each file so that it can show both artist and track on the LCD. Others that have video output should have some type of folder display.

-Robert
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