Here is a problem I have run across once before.

Trying to run a simple system of TV with a DVD player and Cable through a receiver. There are two specific considerations.

#1 The TV does not have audio outputs of any kind.
#2 The cable/homeowners association does not provide a cable box/tuner. It is just the RF Coaxial cable carrying basic cable.

So, I could run the cable directly to the TV and use the TV's speakers, but I don't want to. I want to run all audio and video through the receiver.

What I would like is an adapter to convert RF Coaxial F-type cable to s-video or RCA but as far as I can see this does not exist. Seeing that there is an adapter for everything else I am wondering just for my knowledge why this is not possible? Could I dismantle a cable box and make my own adapter? Or should I look for a generic cable box to do the conversion for me?

I would appreciate any suggestions on choosing a generic cable box and where to get one.

I would expect more people to have this problem with the majority of TVs not having audio output and the majority of receivers not having RF inputs, but I guess everybody except me uses cable boxes.

Thanks in advance for any help or comments.

If anyone wants to make an adapter you have at least one customer.

To get audio and video from the RF signal provided by cable TV, you need a cable tuner of some sort (think of it as analogous to an FM tuner in conjunction with an antenna to hear radio stations). If you don't have access to a cable box and the TV lacks outputs, you need to find another device that offers a cable tuner. The easiest way to obtain this is a VCR. A simple "hifi" VCR (stereo analog audio outputs) will give you the outputs you want.

The problem doesn't crop up too often these days because satellite and digital cable both more or less require a standalone receiver and because analog (or even digital) audio outputs have become more common on TV's.

Thanks gonk.

The VCR solution will require that I use the VCR remote to change channels, correct?

That is correct - the VCR is serving as your cable tuner. The TV is going to act solely as a video monitor.

Does the TV have a video input other than the RF cable connection?

Yes.

Samsung LN-S2338W 23" LCD
It has 1 HDMI, 2 Component, 2 Composite

With the Onkyo CS-v720s dvd receiver
1 Component output, s-video in, composite in. But no RF input.

This is a setup for my girlfriends mother. Cough LOL, not mine.

I'm surprised that the Samsung doesn't have some sort of audio output - that's kind of annoying.

I went hunting for info on both the TV and the DVD receiver. Sure enough, there's no mention of audio output on the Samsung - I guess when they yanked the OTA HD tuner out, they pulled the audio output entirely. The Onkyo manual took forever to download, but it finally did and I got a simple answer to a potentially difficult question that I had. I wondered if the Onkyo would transcode composite or s-video inputs to the component video output. Lo and behold, there are no video inputs, thus there is no transcoding. I'd run component video from the Onkyo to the TV, then run stereo analog from the VCR to the "Line/TV" input of the Onkyo and composite video from the VCR to the TV.

I agree. Thanks for the help again.

Now for the hard and potentially dangerous part...

Trying to teach her how to operate it. Ahhhhhh.


PS. If anyone is interested in a very nice computer monitor the TV I'm getting her is in huge supply on ebay currently and can be had for $300-$350 new, fairly easily. Maybe even less. Online retailers are still trying to sell it for $600-$700

Samsung LN-S2338W