Can you use two HDMI cables at same time

[thane108]

I have two hdmi out on my pc and I'm thinking about running one hdmi out to the TV for video and one hdmi out to the receiver for audio to get around handshaking issues and still be able to transmit multi-channel hi-def audio. I'm currently running one hdmi to tv and one optical spdif to the receiver. The optical is limited to 48,000 when I transmit over dolby to get my multichannel.

Is it possible to run to hdmi cables - one to TV and one to receiver?

 

[Andrew Murdoch]

I have two hdmi cables, one to a monitor one to a sony AV receiver. The audio available on both connections is from the chip on my Graphics card. I have a spdif Optical cable going from my sound card to the AV Receiver.

You can select Video and audio devices independently of each other in windows, just make sure the AV receiver is set-up correctly. The hdmi in and spdif in need to be the same connecter, on my sony its the SAT/CAT V input as opposed to DVD or BD.

I hope that made sense.

 

[thane108]

Thanks - I tested and it works. I now have an hdmi out from the gpu to the receiver and a second hdmi from the motherboard out to the TV. (And a dvi from the gpu to the monitor.) I can select video from one hdmi and audio from the second hdmi, as you explained. This has solved hdmi handshaking issues I had when turning off the tV while listening to music.

 

[Andrew Murdoch]

Awesome. Glad to help, please select best answer if it was 😉

 

[thane108]

Awesome. Glad to help, please select best answer if it was 😉

I have my system working similar to yours - thanks for the guidance.

HDMI out to receiver, HDMI out separately to TV, and displayport out to monitor. I have separate HDMI outs to TV and receiver to avoid handshaking issues when I turn off the tV when listening to music from pc.

But . . . when I put the computer monitor to sleep (just monitor, not PC) I lose audio across the HDMI.

Is there a solution? (Right now I'm using a blank screen saver instead of putting the monitor to sleep).

I can't turn off the displayport monitor. If I do I have to reboot to get signal to the displayport. If there isn't a solution I'm thinking about dropping displayport for dvi.

 

[thane108]

I went ahead and dropped displayport in favor of dvi - now I can just turn off the monitor and avoid the sleep issues.

 

[Andrew Murdoch]

Sorry I didn't get back to you straight away, been a bit crazy with work last couple days. That's great that you managed to get it working the way you wanted.

 

[thane108]

Interesting few days, with a few discoveries.

It seems that if you have three (or more) connections using your GeForce 970 you need to be aware of the implications - it matters which connection to use with each device. Here is what I found through the school of hard knocks.

1) Displayport has issues. It is a little unruly. It doesn't like it if you turn off the monitor. Afterwards you can get the dreaded "no signal" error that requires some kind of action, such as a reboot, to restore the signal. I like to turn off my monitor so this is a non-starter for me.
2) I have one HDMI out, one Displayport, and two dvi-out connections on my GeForce 970. Since I'm not using the Displayport, that leaves the two dvi connectons and the HDMI out.
3) The only way my home entertainment system will work well given the above is to use the HDMI connection to the monitor, with one DVI going to the television in the other room, and one DVI going to my AVR. If the HDMI goes to the AVR, you can get some strange issues upon reboot as the GeForce 970 seems to want to grant priority to the HDMI connection (no matter what you assigned in Nvida control panel).
4) Also, don't forget to go into windows and configure the speaker (in my case the AVR).

So this worked well for me:

HDMI to monitor - I get 1440 at 60mz.
DVI to TV
Separate DVI to AVR (so I can turn off TV without losing audio through receiver)

Detail above intended to help someone else avoid trail an error. That said, I'm sure there are multiple ways to skin this cat. But this works, and I am way past done!