Video Input and Old School TV

[Janine]

I wanted to shoot myself after I opened the box to my new home theater system and looked through the instructions--a whole new vocabulary for me!! I can't believe I made it this far!

Though I do want to tweek it, I can at least watch TV and listen to music now. Here's my issue: I can't watch DVDs or view the system's display on my tv because I only have one video input jack on my tv, and I have video output from my cable box and video output from my new system. Temporarily I take turns with the video output cables, and I tried a "Y adapter audio cable" from Radio Shack. I know it says "audio" but that was what they gave me and to me it looked like it would work. It doesn't.

Do I have options besides buying a new TV? That's not in the budget. Thanks in advance!

 

[bandphan]

welcome, in general most take the video feed from the cable box and route the through their receiver, then outputing one cable to your television. If your new system can not accept addtional input signals you can use a switch like this. Good Luck

 

[markw]

You can buy a "video switchbox" that has up to four inputs and one output.

This is one of many : http://www.amazon.com/RCA-VH911-Video-Switch-Box/dp/B00008X5DE

Their style may vary but their functions are the same. You simply select which of the four inputs you want to use.

Wal-Mart sells a Philips unit in their TV goodies section that will do all you need (and more) for about $20 or so, but these devices are available almost anywhere. I mention this one only because I've had one for a few years and it works well.

Radio Shack most likely has a similar device well. Dunno about the price though

 

[Adam]

Janine, welcome to the forum!

Please let us know which system you purchased. That will help us look up the connection options available to you on that unit.

Adam

 

[Janine]

Thank you all to the replies.

Bandphan, your solution crossed my mind, but because it was so simple, I was convinced it wouldn't work! So on your advice, I will try that.

Markw, I do have a switchbox I used on my old setup, but really don't want to rely on a manual operation to control my DVD and TV. Of couse, if that's all I can do, I can live with it . And I have the switchbox already so what the heck.

What I was thinking this morning as I was looking at my switchbox is that maybe I can use my switchbox only to split the connection and not have to manually switch between TV and DVD. I didn't give this too much thought yet, but for each input on the switchbox, there is a video input, audio input (2), and an S video input. Maybe I can connect the TV output with the switchbox video and audio inputs and then, in the same area there, hook up the DVD S Video output with the S video input? Easy enough to try, I am just momentarily involved in too many projects.

I will also try re-routing the video feed as suggested, and I know that I can always fall back on the traditional use of the switchbox.

You guys rock! Thank you!

Also Adam, my system is a Sony DAVHDX277WC. It has this cool S-Air thing so I can hear my music in another room without rocking out the entire neighborhood, and I can hookup my Ipod easily enough, and all that for what I thought was a great price. $347 and free shipping. Any ideas from you would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Adam]

Janine,

If I downloaded the correct manual from Sony, that system doesn't have any additional video inputs on it. So, you can't route the video from the cable box through the Sony receiver. You probably already knew that, though...

What type of video input does your TV have? Does it have both a screw-on coax input and an RCA video input? If so, does your cable box have a screw-on coax output? If that's the case, then you could connect the Sony to your TV using an RCA video cable and connect the cable box to your TV using a coax cable. You could switch between the video feeds by selecting the input on your TV (which should be a button on the TV remote, if you actually have both types of inputs). You'd need to set the TV to channel 3 or 4 to watch the cable box (should be a selector switch on the cable box...if not, just try both channels to see which one works).

Something else to try, anyway.

Adam