Adapter for HDMI cable to older receivers?

Question

We have an HD DVD player with an HDMI cable, but our receiver is older and doesn't have an HDMI input. Is there an adapter to make it all work, or do we need to buy a new receiver?

Answer 1

Receiver generally do not include HDMI inputs because HDMI only supports 2.0 standard stereo audio and hdmi cords are very expensive (looping through the receiver would require 2.  Your HD-DVD player should have an optical toslink or digital coax connection for which you can hook up surround sound with the appropriate cable/fiber.

Answer 2

try ebay

Answer 3

There are no viable adapters for HDMI to analog formats (it would be very expensive, and more important, illegal since it would bypass HDCP).

But ... HDMI carries video and audio. You can connect it direct to your HDTV, and connect the audio to the receiver via optical. You loose the advanced audio formats (which you need an external receiver with decoders for anyway), but you still get the benefit of HD video and a DD or DTS soundtrack.

To the comment that HDMI is 2.0 audio ... not true ... it supports multichannel sound. From Wikipedia (1st link):

"HDMI also includes support for 8-channel uncompressed digital audio at 192 kHz sample rate with 24 bits/sample as well as any compressed stream such as Dolby Digital, or DTS."

As to HDMI cables being expensive -- they can be, but for most uses a $5 cable will work as well as an expensive one. See 2nd link

Answer 4

Not really,  there is an adaptor to convert HDMI to component video, but for the $300 price tag, you might as well put that toward a newer receiver that supports HDMI upconversion/pass through.  Onkyo makes a decent one for under $400 that has a lot of features for the price.