Marry fox, throw grain in water, feed HDMI cable to goose

February 15, 2019 10:02 AM

I have a DVD player that has one of those RCA triple plugs. I want to connect it to a Smartboard that has an HDMI and a USB. We can ONLY play movies from a DVD, but we DON'T have a computer with a DVD drive. How do I make the movie appear on the Smartboard?
posted by blnkfrnk to Technology (10 answers total)

Best answer: Something like this should do it.

But does the Smartboard have speakers?
posted by jonathanhughes at 10:06 AM on February 15, 2019

Best answer: If the plugs are yellow/red/white (video, left audio, right audio), you can use something like this (cheaper on Amazon if you don't need it today).

If it's component video (red, green blue) + audio (red, white) you'll need something like this.
posted by ftm at 10:07 AM on February 15, 2019

Response by poster: Yes, it has speakers. Bad ones, but we can hear it.

I think the HDMI to RCA converter thing would work.

Thanks!
posted by blnkfrnk at 10:12 AM on February 15, 2019 [1 favorite]

Best answer: For the price of some of those converter boxes, you might be able to pick up a cheap DVD player that outputs native HDMI...
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 10:14 AM on February 15, 2019 [11 favorites]

I have personal experience with a cheapo box like jonathanhughes links to, and it is a completely serviceable widget to do what you're trying to accomplish. It's how we hook up an old pre-HDMI videogame machine to our TV.
posted by AzraelBrown at 11:06 AM on February 15, 2019

Having worked any number of frankenstein contraptions into existence to deal with this sort of limitation and situation, my firm suggestion is you go to Goodwill and buy a DVD player with HDMI out for half what that above converter box costs.

About half the time I've had to try to do something like this to deal with two devices with mismatched connections I find that the intermediate solution, which on paper should work, for some reason does not. Audio doesn't come through or is distorted or too low, video has a weird aspect ratio that's then a hassle to override, etc.
posted by phearlez at 11:34 AM on February 15, 2019 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Followup question: has anyone used a Smartboard with a DVD player that has HDMI and it actually worked?

Things that should work on a Smartboard, like using the browser to stream video from a streaming service, often do not work (software is forbidden somehow.) So I'm hoping that just plugging the stupid thing in will make it work, but...maybe not.
posted by blnkfrnk at 2:34 PM on February 15, 2019

Response by poster: Naturally...we cannot modify the Smartboard's software, nor do we have any of its documentation.
posted by blnkfrnk at 2:35 PM on February 15, 2019

I think the HDMI to RCA converter thing would work.

Careful ... You want an RCA* to HDMI converter, not the reverse.

* of course the right kind, composite or component, as ftm described above.
posted by intermod at 8:58 PM on February 15, 2019

You’re a teacher, right? The smart board is district equipment and you bought the DVD player yourself, because you have no other way to display movie scenes for your visual grammar of film lessons?

I am interested to see how you solve this bc this is MOL my classroom setup too.
posted by toodleydoodley at 3:56 PM on February 17, 2019