Coax adapter

[randyfamly]

I have just gotten a new H20 receiver but there is no coax output cable. Is there an adapter that will take the component video cables and merge them back to a coax signal? I will not be using HD on this tv.

[greyhound]

http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/AVX-561.htm

[Rich A]

Originally Posted by randyfamly

I have just gotten a new H20 receiver but there is no coax output cable. Is there an adapter that will take the component video cables and merge them back to a coax signal? I will not be using HD on this tv.

If I'm understanding you correctly, no "adapter" will do this. What you need is a video modulator. If you are talking about real "component" output from that box then it should be something like separate video and audio .. where the video out is three connections, Red Green Blue and the audio is stereo phono plugs. Or the audio "might" be 5.1 which would be either a fibre optic or coaxial type connector.

I assume your TV only has a standard TV-IN connector either 300 ohm twin lead or 75 ohm coaxial. If so then a modulator would put the converted signal to one of the available TV channels on your TV. The problem is the term "component". Modulators that take "component" signals in to a TV channel RF out (if they exist) are going to be pretty expensive.

BUT if you have what is called a "composite" video out on the set-top box, then that is easy. There are many RF modulators that take composite video in and send it out via an RF TV channel. As with all things, you'll get what you pay for. Cheap ones are available at RS and even places like Home Depot etc. If your set-top box has something like a single RCA jack for the video out, then it is going to be composite.

Be warned though that Composite video is about the worst thing you can have as far as over-all quality. If your set-top box has an S-Video output (which I would think it has) then THAT would be a much better signal to work with. But to retain the quality of the original source signal, you would have to use a modulator that had S-Video inputs. So here are some ways to do it. Also keep in mind that any conversion to an RF TV channel is going to degrade the signal quality.

In order of best final video quality to worst

Cable box output:

Component: to RF modulator with component in - RF TV channel out.
S-Video: to RF modulator with S-Video in - RF TV channel out.
Composite: to RF modulator with composite in and TV channel out.

I have a whole house TV distribution custom setup here. And I use a three input RF modulator that has three programmable TV channel outputs. Two of the modulators inputs are being fed by security cameras. Those two output to a couple unused TV channels so I can switch my TV to one of them to see what's going on in the back or front yard. The third modulator input is being fed by the composite output of my HTPC. This allows me to switch any TV in the house to that particular channel where I can watch my Beyond TV and Beyond Media.

And I have to say that although viewable, the quality isn't all that great. But we watch most of our TV in the home theater where the video is very nice as it's being driven directly by the HTPC's video out.