Home theater with vintage components

[wjb]

I have a home theater system using components that are old. All the components, with the exception of the HDTV and Roku, are pre-HDMI. To make a long description short, I have 5.1 audio and the LCD projector is 800x600, but I am using the composite cable input. I am thinking that to get the maximum resolution on the projector I could use a composite-to-HDMI converter with a HDMI-to-VGA active adapter. Am I correct? Does anyone see a problem?

 

[americanaudiophile]

No problem but no advantage. Composite is limited to 480 lines so converting it to HDMI (digital video) and then converting it back to VGA (analog video) can only make the picture worse not better.
Because your projector doesn't have enough resolution to produce HD even with an HD signal even converting HDMI to VGA won't give you a better picture.
Time to save up for a new projector with at least 1280 x 720 and HDMI input. You can then use an HDMI switch with audio extraction like this one
http/www.monoprice.com/Product?p_id=5557&kpid=105557&gclid=CPPY2sLnwcYCFYIXHwodhY0FTw
to feed audio to you old surround system.

 

[wjb]

No problem but no advantage. Composite is limited to 480 lines so converting it to HDMI (digital video) and then converting it back to VGA (analog video) can only make the picture worse not better.
Because your projector doesn't have enough resolution to produce HD even with an HD signal even converting HDMI to VGA won't give you a better picture.
Time to save up for a new projector with at least 1280 x 720 and HDMI input. You can then use an HDMI switch with audio extraction like this one
http/www.monoprice.com/Product?p_id=5557&kpid=105557&gclid=CPPY2sLnwcYCFYIXHwodhY0FTw
to feed audio to you old surround system.

 

[wjb]

Thanks. The projector looks good enough now and I have an extra replacement bulb so I will go with it for a while. Just wondering if I could tweak it. Thanks again for your time.

 

[jsmithepa]

"Composite to HDMI" = you hit the bottleneck rule, is gonna look s**t.

With pre-HDMI stereos, and if you have multi HDMI ports on your TV, hook up the HDMI sources directly to the TV instead and switch your video there, then route the source's audio (toslink?) to the vintage stereo and switch audio there. Having a universal programmable remote will help.