It’s a 9 year old Sony KV-27FS13 model television, if you must know. I have the manual, but either I’m missing it or it doesn’t explain it well enough. I think it says something about a stereo hookup or something.
Anyway:
My TV has four AV slots. I use them for 2 DVD players, a video game system, and would like to use the 4th one for my Roku. However, the fourth one is the mystery one and I don’t know what would go where.
This NOT a HD TV and it only has the regular Yello, White, Red ports for things(and one S-video port). Anyway, the fourth one does not look the same.
It is a component video port. I’m not sure if you can hook up your Roku box to it or not; I don’t have one. Most DVD players should have component out, however.
The green, blue, and red column are for component video. The second column is for audio.
If your DVD player/Roku has component video output (pretty common and uses the same color RCA jacks) you can use it. If not, try finding component video output on something else you’re inputing to the TV and swapping them around. You can use any RCA cables you can find to hook it up.
Component video? I’m not familiar with that. Does this mean I can choose one of those ports and put the yellow video cable from a Roku/DVD player in it and it will work. If so, which one? If not, what do I need?
It looks like that input does double duty as component and composite.
Put the yellow cable in the green one, and you should be fine. However, if your equipment has component ( red, green, and blue RCA) out as an option, you should definitely use that - you’ll get a better picture.
In the top port(green), video worked, but it was black and white.
In the middle port(blue), video was a total mess of zig zag lines.
In the bottom port(red), video was a total mess of zig zag lines.
Do I need to go to Radio Shack and buy component cables? While the Roku does not have ports for it on its back, both my DVD players do have blue, green, and another red port on them.
There is a configuration option in the menus of the TV set to select composite or component. There might also be options for variations of component. What you describe sounds like you plugged a component signal into the port while it was configured for composite.
Whatever you do, do NOT go to Radio Shack. Any normal RCA cable will work fine.
Yeah, with component the green channel is the only one with a sync signal. Sorry for misleading you, I thought it was one of the nice ones that’ll detect a composite signal and switch automatically. (Mistaken belief 'cuz the green input is marked “Y,” which is actually standard labelling for component.)
Check the outputs on your other DVD players and game systems. If you have any that will support component out (and surely at least one does) just pick up a component cable for it and switch it over there, and use the free composite one for your Roku.
If I were you, I’d get a cheap pair of component video cables for your DVD player and hook it up into that port, it’d give you a much better signal. If you get them from monoprice.com they’ll be, like, $5.
Or just look around your house. Any three mismatched RCA cables will work just fine. When I first switched to component I often found myself using a set of L/R audio cables and Yellow video cable. It’s not going to make any kind of noticeable difference. Component cables are component cables because they come in a group of three with the correct colors (and they’re usually heavier), but as long as you match the colors at each end, it’ll be fine.
Just to clarify the suggestion of using a set of composite cables to act as component cables:
A set of composite cables has one cable for for video and two for audio. A component connection needs three cables for video. If you take the suggestion of using a set of composite cables, you will be using all three cables for video. You will need a second set of cables to make an audio connection.
Hint: The cheapest cables will be via the internet. If you can’t wait for them to be shipped to you, go to Home Depot or your local hardware store first. I was surprised to see the selection of cables they have there and they are much cheaper than Radio Shack (or Staples or Best Buy), but not as cheap as you can get online.
You need a total of 5 RCA cables (Y,Pb,Pr for video and L,R for Audio). The colors don’t matter as long as they match (blue to blue, green to green etc).
Let me clarify further. In a set of composite (red, yellow, white) cables, usually all three cables are identical except for the color of the plug at the end. Sometimes, they make the yellow (video) cable a little thicker.
You could use all three (red, yellow, white) to carry the component video. Just make sure that you plug the same color in on both ends. For example, be sure to plug both yellow connectors into the green holes at both ends, both white connectors into the blue holes, and both red connectors into the red holes.
Then get another set of composite cables and use two of the cables (red, white) to connect the audio.
I’ve personally never used composite cables in place of component cables, but other people are suggesting this and it seems logical that it should work.
Although these are usually called component video, technically that term can mean any video split over multiple signals. This is properly called YPbPr. The “Y” is luminance (intensity), “Pb” is the difference between luma and blue, and “Pr” is the difference between luma and red. Green is inferred, thus resulting in a full picture. Despite the cables being red, green, and blue, and despite occasional package labeling, this is not RGB, which has separate signals for red, green, and blue. YPbPr is slightly lower quality than analog RGB or VGA, but not by much.
YPbPr is the highest-quality signal commonly available for standard-definition use in North America (RGB SCART, common in Europe, is slightly better, and YPbPr is not so common there). Composite handles the entire video on one wire, and s-video splits the signal into luminance and chrominance (color), resulting in an improvement, while YPbPr further splits the signal and shows a bigger improvement. YPbPr is also the only connection commonly used for both SD and HD video, although, as an analog signal, it is inferior to DVI and HDMI.
All game consoles from the Playstation 2 up support it, and many DVD players, cable boxes, and other set top boxes. On devices that don’t support HDMI/DVI, it’s necessary for progressive scan and/or HD output. It’s sometimes implied to be strictly for that purpose, but it will also give you the best picture in SD.
What output options does your Roku have? I think there is a HDMI to component cable available. I don’t know if it will make a difference with you tv not being hidef though.
Lots of good information here. Sorry for the slow response.
Your best options:
Get five more RCA cables (they don’t have to be “component cables”), and hook one of your DVD players up to the input in your picture with them. Then hook up the Roku to one of the ports a DVD player was using.
Ditch one of the DVD players and hook up the Roku instead.
Right, I got that the TV isn’t HD but there exists HDMI-to-component cables like this one. I would guess your tv is smart enough to take whatever signal is going into the back and display it properly. This would save you the hassle of trying to matchup the component input on the tv with a non-component output on the roku.