( this is USD ) ( And is a suggestion in the form of a story ). So, I was sitting here planing out new rig, when i got to the topic of monitors. As i was looking at $400+ LED backlit 27" in things, it occurred to me. I got a 52" $3000 LED backlight TV with roughly the same resolution sitting 45 feet away in the other room. I know i can use it as a monitor, I know modern video card will have no issue driving it. So i'm like cool saves me money, just need to deal with keyboard and mouse. One USB<->CAT5e converter later that lets me move devices 150; feet away, problem solved. Or was it? Sound. Shoot, I know HDMI does audio and video, but video cards are pure video. Do they output sound magically? Crap need research. What I find? well not to much that was conclusive. It would seam ATI can do it auto magically, but Nvidia need you to jumper the sound card SPDIF to the video card. Ok, I can live with that. [and here is where the article content comes in] But there was still a problem, all the info was always in the context of DVD/Bluray, not in the context of normal PC audio and games (surround sound). I know there is a difference. That was the reason i had to buy a HDA X-Mystique all those years ago in order to get 5.1 game sound though the 5.1 receiver and onto the good speakers (go go 5.1 dolby real time encoding). So as things become larger and more expensive ($800 video cards really?), and the economy continues to suck, people are looking to reduce expensive duplication. And with modern AV gear, there is a lot of room to combine. But right now today, just what hoops will one have have to jump through to do it. Maybe i'll have to get the newer X-Mystique and jumper that to the video card, but wait, X-Mystique are PCI last i looked, crap.
I don't know about the HDMI. When I was setting up my GTX 460 after I bought it I used the TV to test. I just used the HDMI cable output in the 460 and popped it into the TV. Bam, sound. So I'm not familiar with the stuff, but I don't see an issue.
