Merging home entertainment systems (vocal, audio and video)

Audio and video systems

I belong to the old school that got left behind by the rapid development in the sound system (audio): Singles>LP> cassettes>CD>MP3>MP4>...All my music are in cassettes tapes form. I do not own any CD's. When Karaoke appeared on the scene in Malaysia, it came in as VCD's. My Karaoke library is in VCD format and the player is a Samsung disc player as shown below. The most important feature are the two input jacks for microphones.

Karaoke player

TV, which is sound and picture (video) developed separately from music: VHS/>LD>DVD>Blue-ray>3-D. TV had nothing to do with the home sound system until recently. Now the two systems seem to be merging with a third: home computer system and getting quite complicated and difficult for an amateur like me to handle.

For many years, I had a VHS tape player for watching my recorded movies on my old 32" Panasonic TV as shown above. I was quite happy and satisfied with this two separate systems until very recently when digital TV came on the scene in NZ. John Key is threatening to stop analogue broadcasts at the end of 2013. I am left with no other options but to upgrade my TV to digital. That is all well and good but I quickly found out that my audio system is analogue, not digital. The two apparently cannot merge.

upgrade to digital TV

This means that when I operate my Samsung Karaoke set  I cannot see any pictures or lyrics on my new 55"Sony digital TV monitor.

Marrantz amplifier

Sound is still ok because I routed the output cables to my old Marrantz amplifier which is connected to two very large Marrantz speakers (stereo).

I tried putting the VCD disc into the new slim line, Sony DVD player.I can see the picture on the new Sony digital TV but cannot hear any thing from the large stereo speakers, just the small TV speakers! Any one can tell you that people enjoy doing Karaoke because the sound is loud and can make the windows shake. Also, most of us Karaoke generation are older and are slightly deaf! What is even worse is this. The new slim line Sony DVD player has no input jacks for my microphone. How to sing?!

My Sony DVD player is a home theatre system with surround sound, 3D, blue ray and is very new as shown below:

Sony DVD player

close-up

showing speakers connections on left

It is model BDV-E880 and has a USB jack in front and 3 HDMI sockets at the rear.  It includes two tall towers, boom box, mid range and two smaller side speakers. The Marrantz sound system has two huge 6" stereo speakers. Total 8.

My wife is not too happy with all this clutter in the lounge.  I am looking for ways to merge all the 3 home entertainment systems into one working system using less speakers; but can still hear myself sing. I wonder if any one else has this problem. I could be the only dinosaur left. :)