Lately, it has seemed that my usual Midas touch with technology (just ask my mom) has been fading. The DVD player that I got for Christmas wouldn’t work with any TV in my grandparents’ house because none of them had A/V inputs, only coax inputs. So I took a little trip to Radio Shack to get an RF converter. This should solve my problem, I thought. I also bought another coax cable to complete the new connection I would make from the RF converter to the TV. $37 later, I was set to go. Or so I thought.
I got home and made all the necessary connections, according to the instructions. Then I turned on the DVD player and dropped my newly-bought, eagerly-anticipated copy of The Matrix into the system. I turned the TV to channel 3.
Nothing.
Okay, so maybe I had the RF converter set to channel 4 instead. I checked. No dice. Well, maybe the 75K ohm should be set to 1M instead. Nope. Maybe the A/V cables weren’t in all the way or in the right place. No such luck. I wasn’t even getting a signal from the RF converter. The LED indicator just under the ON label was dark as it was ere it came out of its box.
Sigh. So I packed it back up and took it back to Radio Shack. That’s okay, I needed a new TV anyway, right? 🙂
So a couple of days of searching and traveling all over the great city of Birmingham, Alabama led me to a set with all the features that I wanted at a price that I was willing to pay. I was especially excited about the S-video and front input jacks that were included. Sadly, I would come to rue the day these features were on my TV. (Sidebar: does one ever rue anything else but a day? It’s like using the word “ensuing” only to describe a kickoff on SportsCenter. You never hear the word anywhere else in any other context. At least I don’t. Anyway…)
I got the set home, and with some effort got it up onto the chest of drawers where the old set once sat. I plugged in the coax and ensured that everything worked properly there, and then I proceeded to go through 30 doubly frustrating minutes. I say “doubly frustrating” because it first frustrates you during the time period itself, and it later frustrates you in a head-slapping, “of course it was that easy; I’m just a moron” sort of fashion.
I got the S-video cable plugged into the back of the TV. Then I got the A/V cables that came with the DVD player and plugged the audio cables into the front A/V jacks, because I thought that it would be easier to deal with that way. If I knew then what I know now…
I turned on the set and the DVD player and went to the VID channel, bypassing the mysterious FRNT channel on the way. I was greeted with the menu sequence of The Matrix in grainy black and white and with no sound.
Hey, it was farther than I had gotten with the RF converter. At least I had a picture now. So what was the problem? After a few minutes of randomly looking through menus, I stumbled upon the video channel input settings. I discovered that the TV was looking through the video input, which I had gone ahead and plugged in as well. Ah…now it was clear. I switched that setting to S-video and got out. Now, on the brand-new SVID channel, I had a crystal clear color image, but still no sound.
So I started checking connections again. It was then that I decided to go up to channels 3 and 4 again to see if that had anything to do with it. (This was, I admit, a ludicrous idea, but at least it led me to the truth.) I had to go through the FRNT channel again to do this. But this time, I heard music. The Matrix menu sequence music, to be precise. Now I had picture on one channel, and sound on another.
I’m sure that everyone by now has figured out exactly what the FRNT channel corresponded to. I didn’t put two and two together, however. Instead, I just decided to switch the audio cables to the back, too. To the surprise of absolutely no one who’s reading this, it worked like a charm. It was only about ten minutes into the movie that the thought hit me: “Hey, the FRNT channel is for the front input jacks!” I had a good laugh about it, if you can consider shamefully shaking your head back and forth while covering it with your hand while you laugh a good laugh.
Ha, ha, ha. johnna got her’s to work with the rf converter thing. i honked at you like ten times the other day but you were concentrating on what you were doing or something safe like that.
Well, what should I say. Just think of the dumb look I gave the monitor or as I read this.
Ditto Bill (with a question mark after ‘say’ and without the extra ‘or’).
After personally assembling the Ultimate Entertainment Center(tm), I have to deal with thousands of miles of wire in my living room, which can actually be seen from the space station. These things can get complicated, but it’s worth it in the end when all your toys work. And since I’m the only human alive (sorry, Manuel…you were a liability) who knows how it all works together, I have no fear of anyone else playing with my toys.
Luckily for me, all the roommates I’ve ever lived with either have more initiative or more know how when it comes to all things electronic. Therefore, I’ve never had to live the joys of setting up new gizmos.
I know…it’s sad, isn’t it? But, hey, it works…at least I didn’t completely regress into “blinking 12:00” mode. 🙂
I don’t have much to say, but I figured I should say something since everyone else did. The first thing I thought when I read about your little adventure in electronic land was this: “Think, McFly. Think!”
I’m a big fan of the Composite Video Hook-ups if your TV came with that, you’d really be set! (FRNT, come on German.)
My tv only had two prots on the front which I thought would work with only the yellow and the white. But it turns out that i needed the converter to work mine as well. It worked the first time except I had pluged in the wrong two red and white cables into the converter( stupidity on my part)
Try Aluminum Foil, it will clear anything up!