I have been using Tata Sky DTH at my home and connected to the Monitor using external TV Tuner Box. Frankly speaking, I am not at all happy with the quality of sound and whole bunch of wires. So, when I was planning to get DTH connection for my office, I was specifically looking for something which will give me good quality Audio / Video with very few wired connections.
Since my monitor was HD, I was planning to get HD based STB as it won’t require any TV Tuner card and will give me better quality for Audio and Video too. (Even on the normal SD channels).
I got Airtel’s Digital TV HD. Pretty decent looking stylish STB and remote controller. So, to get it working with my monitor, all I needed was HDMI to DVI cable / converter. I am not sure if all the HD monitors have HDMI port but if your monitor has DVI port, then you should get this cable. You will also have to keep in mind that, the type of DVI port can be different for your monitor. In this case, mine is DIV-D (24+1, this one is a common one) but some the monitors might have 24+5 pin DVI port too. Check here for more info. These cables cost merely Rs. 250 on eBay India website.
Once this is done, you will need to get the speakers working. You may want to connect your surround sound system (2.1 or 5.1) but for my office, I just had basic speakers, so I just needed a Mini Stereo (Female) to 2 RCA Male speaker cable. This costs just around Rs. 30 and you get it at any local stores.
So for me, by spending additional Rs. 280, I saved myself for lot of mess (wires) and got much better sound and video quality. I use this monitor as a dual monitor and whenever I want to watch TV, I just take out the VGA cable from my monitor and we have the TV ready. 🙂
I know, this is not any rocket science but this will surely help the newcomers.
Image Source: HD by phjellming
thank u friend i am using lg 2040
By reading ur blog,i got my solution.u keeps me away 4m tv tuner n its cabling.lik u im also vdo n sound qualty lovr. Lot a thanks
THANK YOU FRIEND , I am planning to buy tata sky STB for my home and connect it to my dell HD monitor ,
Hi Deep,
I have a question : Why didn’t you use a regular HDMI cable instead of HDMI-DVI Convertor?
If my monitor has HDMI Input, will it work with regular HDMI Cable? if yes, how will the sound be managed because HDMI is for both audio and video and my monitor doesnt have speakers.
Hi Karan,
In my case, I did not have HDMI port in my monitor, so I had to use HDMI-DVI but now a days, every monitor has HDMI port. So you can definitely use HDMI. For sound, you can use digital or analog ports to connect to your sound system / speakers.
Regards,
Deep
I am using the same above mentioned setup. the only difference is I am using Hdmi cable to connect my monitor. Only problem is everything looks bit blurry, its not crystal clear image like when I am using PC.
Anyone have solution to this ? Help appreciated.
Hi Deep,
Please accept that your blog is so useful and informative. Brilliant. I connected my hp2309m monitor to Airtel HD DTH STB via the HDMI port on both end. additionally got the RCA audio R/L points connected to 2.1 speaker as the monitor’s own audio signaled via HDMI cable is almost inaudible. BINGO!! and thank you so much.
Now the solution that I’m looking for is I can’t find a way to manage the volume level through remote. My Airtel’s STB remote is functioning well for channels only but volume is not managed by this remote… At the same time If I connect the audio outputs of STB to input of my old CRT ( with the HDMI still connected & delivering display to my LCD), then I can manage the volume(on old CRT) and display (on LCD) smoothly with the same remote. Any guess?…thanking in anticipation.
I am not too sure about this but in my case, the volume from STB works very well, i.e. I am able to manage it properly. But yeah, for speakers, I have set it to a particular volume level and I let STB’s remote handle the rest.
Deep, are you connected merely via HDMI?…and hey, such a quick response. I’m so overwhelmed.
In my case, remote doesn’t work in either case, Case 1: when only HDMI passes both video & audio signals through monitor’s display/speaker. or Case 2. HDMI signalling video & RCA male to 3.5 female signalling audio to 2.1 speakers.
Remote’s volume key is unused in each case…hope we had some ways for remote access!
I am using Case 2. This way, only STB’s remote will work for volume control. For speaker’s volume, you need to set it manually via hardware volume option on the speaker.
And oh yes, remote connection to check this would have been really cool.
I need to connect LG flatron W2043t monitor and i am having TATA SKY HD set top box. I tried connecting with hdmi to dvi-d cable and monitor is going blank and not showing any picture .Monitor has a resolution of 1600*900.And on monitor i cant change the resolution.So please let me know as how i will be able to connect my set top box with LG monitor without tv tuner card.
Hi Deep,
I had an Airtel HD STB which I used it with my Samsung S22B370H LED monitor. Initially there was no video output from the monitor. But after some googling around I made some setting changes in the STB. Then it worked fine with the monitor without any TV Tuner. Now the old STB is not working so I have to use a new Airtel HD+ STB as the old model is not available. But the new STB is again not producing any output from monitor and I have forgotten the old setting which I used with the previous STB. I tried to google but couldn’t find the relevant page as its been 3 to 4 years. If you have any ideas to share please help me.