DVD, but no S-vid or composite iputs on TV

[Eric M L]

One of my friends got a DVD player for christmas, but her TV doesn't have any composite or S-video inputs. Buying a new TV is not an option for her.

Any signal converters out there that will allow her to send the signal to her TV via coax?

[Bing Fung]

If she has a VCR the DVD could be pugged into a Line in of the VCR. She then selects the Line(x) on the VCR's input and it will pass the Composite video signal.

A Video line converter can be purchased at RadioShack, I think this will do the trick.




Bing

[Eric M L]

Thanks Bing!

I thought about recommending the VCR route, but I figured the Macrovision would cause a problem being routed through the VCR.

[Bing Fung]

Your welcome Eric, I have not tried the VCR pass through, but assumed that macrovison is inabled only if you attempt to record the signal.

Anybody know for sure?




Bing

[rlabarge]

You want to avoid running the signal from the DVD player through the VHS player to the TV. On some VHS players this will cause the signal to be distorted when sent to the TV due to presence of Macrovision on many Hollywood titles.

It would be better to get an A/C Receiver that supports Dolby Digital/DTS and provides a number of inputs for a VHS player, DVD player, CD player, etc. These are fairly inexpensive these days, and would be more usefull than just a video switch.




Ralph LaBarge
Managing Partner, Alpha DVD
Author, "DVD Authoring & Production"
rlabarge@alphadvd.com

[AndrewM]

Well I used to have a computer system's DVD player hooked up through the VCR and I did experience the macrovision problem. First out of the disks that I had at the time (only about 6-7) not all of them had the macrovision problem, or at least anything that I could see. Out of the ones that did the screen simply got bright then dark, but the picture was still viewable at all times, it just looked like somebody was playing with the brightness nob on the TV.

A better way to do it would be getting some type of demodulator, you'll lose some picture quality (will still be better than the VCR), and on most you'll have to flip a switch to select the input, but you're already up from putting the DVD in the player. Or you could simply run all of your components through the reciever (if your friend has a reciever that has A/V hookups), most cable box's have composite outputs, VCR's have them and your DVD has them, then you can leave the switch on all the time on the demodulator and switch through the reciever. I bought one of these about a month after hooking it up through the VCR, I think it was around $15-20 at Walmart and lived with it that way for a few months until I bought a new TV.

Andrew

[Andrew Pratt]

I just went though this with my sister's player. On her DVD player (an RCA) it had a connection for coax out via two RCA plugs and a smaller middle plug. Radio Shack has an adatper that will convert that into coax that you can connect to the VCR just like you would for a gaming system or a camcorder. I believe Radio Shack also sells converters to take compostie video into coax if the player doesn't have the coax out jacks.

Macrovision will almost always be tripped when you send a DVD's image through a VCR even if you aren't trying to record anything. Coax inputs won't be affected though but composite will be. There are some DVD players that can defeat the macrovision but these are mostly the older Apex players and honestly they aren't the best players to use as a main dvd player.