We just got a DVD player for Christmas and its outputs are HDMI and a digital coaxial output (not optical) as another audio option. (And a LAN, but that is IT.) Our TV lacks an HDMI input, but has DVI as well as S-Video, component, VGA, normal coaxial, and RCA (“AVI”). I’m trying to find a way to connect the 2. I’ve found that I can get a simple ~$4 converter to take the HDMI to DVI, but the problem is (I’m told/assume) that if I just do that I won’t have sound. I’m not very familiar with the coaxial digital out, but I don’t have anything that will take that, I don’t think. How can I make this work?
I do see converter boxes for ~$25 that convert the HDMI to DVI with audio. It seems that I could also buy a small converter box that converts coaxial digital audio to RCA… (~$13) but I don’t think the TV will listen to DVI video and RCA audio concurrently. Or ARE THE DVI AUDIO INPUTS THE SAME THING AS RCA AUDIO?
I also don’t think it can play video OUT through the LAN (or wireless), right? (Not sure how the TV would get it anyway.)
I’m guessing the best option would be the HDMI to DVI with audio converter box, but at ~$25 and needing to buy an HDMI cable, maybe I should just try to take it back and get something that will work with my TV… or I could get on craigslist and get a used TV that has an HDMI port.
Posting the model of the DVD and television (or uploading pics of the backs to imgur or something) would help with the accuracy of replies.
Also, where is the sound coming from? Are you using a 5.1 receiver, are you getting sound out of the television, or something else?
My best guess would be to use the HDMI-DVI converter and run separate audio out from the red/white RCA jacks (that I’m assuming are present on the back of the DVD player) to the red/white RCA jacks on the back of the TV/receiver (which I’m assuming have ones).
To test, what about making the audio connections and leaving the HDMI cable on the ground for now. If a DVD autoplays to a menu, you should be able to tell if it’s generating sound irrespective of what video you have connected.
Good luck in the meantime.
Note too my main experience is with DVI-HDMI conversion, not the other way around.
Oh yeah, if you buy any cables or whatnot, be sure to check monoprice.com or NewEgg first.
Probably won’t work. The tv would probably have one input setting where the video would work and a different input setting where the audio would work but not both together.
I think the options are to get the converter box or get a more expensive dvd player with more outputs. We ran into the same problem at Christmas. I didn’t realize that all the reasonably priced dvd players now only have hdmi out.
I’d recommend getting a TV with HDMI inputs. The picture would be clearer (the other inputs are somewhat low resolution analog except for DVI). With HDMI you could watch HD TV shows with a tuner, HD Blu-ray, play HD video games, etc.
BTW on eBay you can sometimes get HDMI cables from Hong Kong for $1 including postage. Reasonable quality ones are sometimes $5. Also many laptops have HDMI out so you could watch things from your laptop on the TV if you got another TV.
The DVD player is a Sony BDO-S3100. The TV is a Scepture X27SV-Naga.
I realize now that the coaxial digital output would probably never go to RCA L/R audio anyway, since that is an analog system. (And, Folly, I agree that the TV won’t take the video from one input setting and the audio from another. In fact, I’ve found that it won’t take the RCA audio unless the video is working first.)
Since DVI is digital, I suppose that DVI audio is digital as well. Would it be possible to get the coaxial digital output to connect with the DVI audio? My TV shows it is a DVI-D and says Audio2 near the DVI audio jacks (which appear similar to RCA jacks). If that would work then the HDMI to DVI $4 converter would get me the picture and I’d be set.
I tried seeing if I could just get sound by trying to play a DVD and using the DVI input, but got no sound. But I wasn’t surprised because, as I said above, the TV seems to not want to try to get sound if there is no video (at least with the A/V RCA connection it does that).
(And Monoprice was already at the top of my list, but good suggestion, Rhythmdvl.)
It WILL get sound from the two RCA sound plugs when the video input is DVI .
How else would it get sound for the DVI video ? The only other choice is antenna. No it won’t do that.
IF the TV had more video inputs, you would have to consult the manual, but for this simple case, the RCA audio sockets are the one source of sound when the video is set to RCA (Composite, component… ) video , or DVI .
Shoot, I forgot to say that the DVD player does NOT have RCA audio jacks (as Rhythmdvl assumed).
It has ONLY the following: a power cord (duh); a coaxial digital output that looks similar to RCA which for just sound, I believe, from everything I’ve read in the manual and online; an HDMI port; an ethernet port (and wireless capabilities) but I don’t think that could ever support video output, right?; and a USB port (for flash drives for slideshows, I believe) but I don’t think that ever could support video anyway (if it could the only thing I could think of would be to try it with a TiVo since it has a USB port).
Good point. DVI-D standard does not carry audio. There has to be some audio input that goes with it, I guess it’s that audio2.
I spent a short amount of time looking for the manual for that tv. Can’t find it.
I just wanted to add that, holy shit, this thing really does have only three outputs–LAN, HDMI, and digital coax. I know the OP said so (and no offence to the OP), but holy shit, am I flabbergasted. Assuming the player is a BDP-S3100, here is a PDFof the manual.
The TV’s audio RCA jacks probably won’t help in this case, as there’s no standard composite video/stereo outs on the player. DVI doesn’t normally carry sound, which is why the easy converter just does video.
(ETA: this was written after post 7 and the others came in while I was previewing and whatnot. Didn’t mean to restate what just came in.)
The HDMI from a DVD player will probably have copy protection (HDCP) on it and the $4 converter likely won’t remove that. It might, but check to be sure.
Yes, it’s a Sony BDP-S3100 (sorry for the typo). Perhaps I’ll see if some local place would let me try a HDMI to DVI video converter so I can test to see if the picture goes through, past the copy protection, and, if so, to see if the sound from the digital coaxial would go into the DVI sound jack(s).
Interestingly enough, in my researching I found out that A/V RCA cords (yellow video, white & red audio) are pretty much the same thing as component, so I pulled out my broken DVD player which would not play using the Y,R/W system OR play using S-Video, to see if by some strange luck it’s last output–component–somehow managed to work. To my shock, it worked! 5 RCA cords (3 component, 2 L/R audio) to do it. How the other 2 don’t work, I don’t know. So maybe I’ll take the new DVD player back and wait till I get a better TV or something.
Also, in re-trying the A/V connection to make doubly sure it still didn’t work, I accidentally left the yellow cord in the yellow, video A/V connection and switched the TV to the component input, and it still worked perfectly! The green component was not connected, but the yellow A/V provided the same thing (grayscale). The picture also worked with just the green component wire (though I’m really using A/V cords) plugged into the green component jack on the DVD player or in the yellow A/V jack, and with the other 2 components unplugged it was just a black and white picture. But unplugging the green altogether got rid of the picture. I believe the green component just adds intensity, and the other 2 must do color, somehow.
Reminds me of this image. So true. Since abandoning CDs, I hate climbing into the Infinity (no tape player and no aux jack). Further, the &@#* player’s space (cutout, whatever) is non-standard, so replacing it with something that has an aux jack is absurdly expensive.
In theory, all you need is a DVI to HDMI adapter and it will work. However, as stated earlier, unless your TV is HDCP compliant (you’d have to run the model number and check) you might not be able to watch HDCP content (which is just about everything). Now, if you were to buy a HDMI to component or VGA with stereo sound or something it might work on your TV. The HDCP copy protection bits won’t make it as it’s an analog signal.
By and large though, you have two pieces of incompatible hardware. Either return the player for one that has the outputs you need or buy a new TV that has HDMI.
Sanity check. A Sony BDP-S3100 is a BluRay player, not a DVD only player. This is the reason for a lot of the grief.
The HD consortium rules have cut in, and it is no longer allowed to provide analogue outputs on BluRay players. This (supposedly) is all about trying to nail down opportunities for copying protected content. It mostly seems to be a way of obsoleting lots of equipment and annoying a lot of people.
So, you must have an HDCP compliant screen in order to view high definition content. Now here is the insane bit. High definition content include upscaled DVDs. This player includes an upscaler, and so, in principle, you can view DVD content in higher definition with the upscaling. But because this is defined as high definition content, the BluRay player will demand that the screen provide it with a valid HDCP handshake. The alternative is that it will refuse to upscale the content. I notice that the screen is 720p capable, which means you could actually use the upscaled content. Similarly the player will refuse to make high definition content off a BluRay disk available to the screen.
In all it is a bit of a mess. In order to get the audio out of the HDMI link you can use an de-embedder. But as noted, there doesn’t seem to be any way of making the TV suck on the analogue audio. Similar models have a 3.5mm stereo socket that is used in concert with the VGA or DVI input, so maybe there is one somewhere.
There do exist HDMI to component video converters, these are not strictly legal (although there is wiggle room), and mostly cost a solid fraction of a good cheap TV. Some provide analog audio output too.
However it may be that the best answer is indeed to just return the player. Or get a modern TV.
Yes, it will play bluray. Sorry, I didn’t realize that would change things so much.
The DVD player I had was ~$25 and it died relatively quickly, so I was hoping to get something (it was a gift) that was going to last longer. If you’re already going to spend $50 or so, it seemed worth it to my dad to get me something that would play bluray too. Plus it has the added benefit of being able to connect to other devices via the wifi, though I didn’t have the time to explore it enough to figure out all of that meant I could or could not do.
I took the Sony back and since my old DVD player works using the component, for the time being I’ll wait until that dies too or I get a new TV.
Thanks for the help, though–I, for one, learned some good things, and my research from this and elsewhere is what got me to be able to test and see that the old DVD player was still giving output from the component. So thanks.