algomedic

Hello, I want to hook my portable DVD player to a TV that will not allow you to switch to Video or Input. This was the case at a hotel where they want you to purchase the movies from them instead hooking up your own entertainment devices. I think I have a way to get around this in the following manor...

The cables for the DVD to TV have RCA males (left/right/video) - if I have an adaptor that has RCA females to an F Connector, would I be able to unplug the TV from the cable coax and plug in this new adaptor and watch the DVD?

Spiky

No. You need a modulator to transfer from RCA hookups to antenna. Around $20-30 almost anywhere.

This is just for hotels, right? If there are actually RCA video inputs available, try some of the likely channels that the video inputs might be on. 0, 1, 99, anything in the 90s, etc. Some TVs don't have a "Video" name on the input, it's just tuned to a channel. But most hotel TVs I've seen don't allow much in the way of you hooking something up, I don't know if anything would work. I believe they have some sort of network controlling them these days, you may not be able to break into it.

rdclark

The last several hotels I've stayed in actually did have AV inputs on their TVs, which is probably a common request from vacationers with camcorders. On our last vacation we actually brought along a console DVD player, along with a pair of powered speakers, a couple TV seasons on DVD we were looking forward to catching up on, and several DVD+rs filled with MP3 files. Nice to be free from local TV and radio.

If the TV really has only one input connector -- the antenna/cable connector -- you'd need an RF modulator, like Spiky said.

RichC

OldBoy

you go on vacation and bring a full dvd player (presumably with all cables), speakers, tv sets, and music dvd's...where'd ya go, the living room!

rdclark

Well, if you're living in your hotel room, that sort of makes it a living room, no?

Seriously, though... I stuck 12 DVDs in a wallet (a season of West Wing and two seasons of MASH) along with four DVD+Rs that had something like 4000 songs on them. The player, the wallet, the speakers, a power strip and some cables all went into a fairly compact box.

Since we were in that hotel for most of two weeks, it was worth it to have our own music and TV programming (we rented a couple of individual movies locally as well). After a long day of activity, it was nice not to have to watch commercials on network TV or panned-and-scanned movies on HBO.

I did once stay in a suite hotel that not only had DVD players in the rooms, but also a free DVD lending library at the front desk.

RichC

ITALIAN926

If you have a VCR hooked up , you can hook the DVD's RCA's to the inputs in back of that.

Mr. Salty

In most cases that won't work because the VCR's Macrovision copy protection circuitry will be triggered.

ITALIAN926

Well, I got it work like that on two different occasions.. on two different VCR's. Im talking about playing them, not recording them.

Mr. Salty

It doesn't matter if you're just playing. In a lot of VCRs, the Macrovision will be triggered anyway. A lot may depend on the brand of the VCR. I've seen five that wouldn't play, but with a friend's cheap-o RCA VCR the Macrovision was almost invisible.

rdclark

Not every DVD has the Macrovision flag present, either. You can try a given player through a given VCR and everything will seem fine until you hit a mainstream Hollywood movie (and not all of them, either) with Macrovision enabled.

RichC

xboxundone

I never had this problem when i watched movies through my VCR....

Spiky

Well, if you're willing to bring your DVDp along with you, throw the Sima MV defeater in the bag, as well. I mean, you do have one, right?