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PVR attached to old analog-only TV

GullyFoyle

GullyFoyle

Diamond Member
The TV in my basement has only a 75 ohm cable connector for input, not even composite connections.
I do have a digital cable box, and a DVD player, connected to the TV through an RF modulator. The DVD player is connected to composite connections on the RF modulator. There is also an s-video jack on the RF modulator for input.
When the DVD player is turned on, the RF modulator detects a signal and it cuts out the cable box in favor of the DVD player.

I'm thinking of building an HTPC/PVR based on an AMD 780G chipset motherboard. The outputs from all the boards I have seen so far are D-Sub, DVI, and HDMI.

What is my best option for connecting this motherboard to this TV?
Can I get an adapter to translate from the D-Sub, DVI, or HDMI connector to an S-Video jack? If more than one of these is available, which would be best?

Is it possible to turn off and on the signal coming out of the onboard video, to trigger the RF modulator (I think this is a long shot)?

In the future, I may move the PVR upstairs where we have an Sanyo CRT-based HDTV with only Component input for HDTV. Similarly to above, what kind of adapter can I get to connect these?

Sorry for having so many questions. Thanks in advance for helping a newbie.
Let me know if you need more info to be able to help.

 
If you want to do it without having to worry about what video card your using, I reccommend getting a converter box from avermedia.
I have one that I use to watch netflix streaming content on a regular tv.
It has a dsub in , dsub out, svideo out, composite out.
You basically connect the video card to the box, then the monitor to the box and the tv connections on it will display whatever is on the monitor.

The pc doesn't even know the box is there, so no software problems.
They are also pretty cheap if you get it off somewhere like ebay.
The one I have is the avermedia averkey imicro.
New they are about 100.00, ebay about 20.00

The only catch is when it comes to hd content.
The max on the box I have is a resolution of 1280x1024
But if your only watching regular tv , its not an issue.

 
For a 480i video output? Search eBay for a matx s370 board with a celeron processor, and add on a Radeon 7000 with s-video outputs. More than enough power for that setup.

For component output, you'll want a dedicated video card. Cheap component output is of very poor performance.
 
Modelworks: Thanks for the idea, that is an option I had not considered. Thanks for the tip about eBay, I saw them for around $30 shipped. One concern is, then I would have the signal going through two devices, the Avermedia, then my RF modulator, before hitting the TV. Would it look like crap?

cubby1223: I see what you are saying, if I only want to do low resolution, I don't need that much horsepower. I was planning for the future, I figured someday I would want to plop a Blueray drive in there, and not necessarily have to rebuild the whole machine to use it as an HD player.

I was considering a third option, what about if I built on the 780G platform, then added a cheap ATI HD 3450 card in there. It would do Hybrid Crossfire, and they have them as cheap as $30 after rebate at Newegg, with S-video out. Any reason this wouldn't work?
 
doesn't thinkgeek have a HDMI to cable RF adapter
i think they announced it along with the Beta to HD-DVD converter

seriously, you need to get a new tv
 
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