One of my roku devices still has composite out
This TV probably predates composite. Either a composite to RF transmitter or one of those doohickies that they sold for the SNES to use a coax cable.
HDMI/Composite to coax convertor if that TV was recent enough to be “cable ready”, otherwise you’ll then need a coax uhf/vhf/fm adapter in the chain.
IIRC, back in the day, there were even composite-to-vhf adapters, but I can’t seem to find any currently sold so either my memory is lying to me or they’re no longer produced.
if that TV was recent enough to be “cable ready”
It has dials. The kind that make an audible thunk when you change the channel. You think there’s really a chance of it being cable-ready?!
Yes, I had a TV in the 80s that had vhf/uhf tuning dials and coax as well since it was “cable ready”. It was also oddly setup with the coax input directly below the uhf/vhf standoffs. So anything you connected to it got in the way of interacting with the coax in. And if the coax you used had a wide nut for threading on it could wind up touching the prongs on the uhf/vhf inputs feet causing fun interference.
Transitional era technology is fun like that.
the prongs on the uhf/vhf inputs feet
Prongs? I had to look that up since I hadn’t heard of a VHF/UHF connection with prongs before. That doesn’t seem very friendly compared to just using a regular plug? In Australia we used these connectors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belling-Lee_connector which have existed since the 1920s.
These are the cables I was familiar with way back then.
Wow, interesting. I don’t think we had those in Australia. I was born in the very early 90s but my mum had a TV from the 1960s and it had a regular plug (like the one I linked to) for the antenna. Those prongs don’t seem user-friendly :)
IIRC, back in the day, there were even composite-to-vhf adapters
I had something like that for my Nintendo 64. My TV only had an antenna plug, no composite.
In Australia, we used these connectors even on very old TVs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belling-Lee_connector whereas the USA seems to mostly use BNC these days.
I had a box with antenna in, TV out, and the red/yellow/white inputs. We called those “RCA” - is that the same thing as composite?
Yeah, composite & RCA are synonymous with eachother. IIRC it’s the difference between the connector name & cable name similar to rj-4 connector l/port vs cat-# cables.
Roku has composite out (yellow, white, red) to a RF modulator and coaxle out of modulator to the tv on channel 3 or 4.
While it will technically work, the old tube tvs had a 4:3 resolution of 5xx x 3xx or so, depending on if they used PAL or NTSC. Modern TV Interfaces are typically designed for a screen resolution of 1200x800 and 16:10 or 16:9, which means the fonts will be unreadable and half of the screen is cut off.
Downscalers exist, though you’re right about text. TV these days just isn’t designed to be legible on tube TVs because there’s really no need to take them into consideration.
Analog video is stupidly easy to change adapt
https://www.amazon.com/HDMI-Converter-Modulator-Old-Transmitter/dp/B07W58PNPP
I’m not recommending you buy this product, just showing you the type of device which allows this.
Going to need one for those first
GAME
I have one of those for my 2600!
Oh yeah, good point.
I know a lot of using it was actually kinda awful. I don’t long for missing a finale episode because it was a bit too rainy for the signal to get through but there was something wonderful about how tactile and beautiful analogue tech was.
Also it felt really really good to be able to slap something into working.
My old Xbox 360 I got back in 2010 was the last piece of tech I owned that could have a problem fixed with a bit of a whack. The disc drive liked to stick closed so I just smacked it on top and out popped my disc. Surprisingly never once damaged my games by doing that.
Good old faithful still runs to this day, only got retired about a year ago and was a decent media box despite its age.
the ol fonzie
Who doesn’t have a SmartSCART? Such a funny thing to say. SmartSCART, SmartSCART, SmartSCART
Is it smarts cart, or smart scart?
Dunno. All my brain can see is shop smart, shop S-mart!
Think she needs to adjust the picture though
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A real life anachronism.
That’s like 1-2 adapters tops.
My guess is… photoshop.
Don’t really need photoshop. It’s not all that hard to get a setup like this working with cheap converters from Amazon. It’s whether somebody’s grandma who refuses to upgrade from a TV that old would know how to do it that’s the questionable part, but it’s not impossible somebody set it up for her.
I can actually imagine my grandpa doing this. I wouldn’t call him a computer wizard by any means, but he has surprised me before. He will just go to the library, and have the librarians find printed computer magazines which would deal with various connectors, learn about HDMI and composite. Then proceed to find another magazine which has reviews of adapters and take a bus to the big electronics shop to ask about adapters and have them place the order for one.
He actually did this when he needed to digitize some tapes. Granted, he ended up with a firewire-connected external sound card and a tape deck from a hi-fi store connected to Audacity, when all he needed was my old walkman, a 3.5mm cable and Windows Recorder, but hey, it got the job done.
He used to be a researcher and he somehow sees these things just as requiring time to find the right source of information… And time he has.
I could imagine someone’s grandma being the same.
You got anymore story of your gramps? The stories sounds awesome!
Well, he did move to live on a remote island (no power, no other people, no access for 5 months out of the year without a helicopter) at age 72. Lived there for several years. Also grew much of his own food for a almost 20 years.
