Code-switching (for the TV)
August 7, 2021 7:00 PM Subscribe
A friend is coming to visit who recently got big into an old UK TV show that was never aired in the US. It did come out on DVDs in Region 2 and I have the box set. However, I don't know how to get them to play on my TV from a latptop, where I can watch in the correct aspect ratio (4:3).
Through the pandemic, I've been doing a weekly watch of this show with a friend who's coming back for a visit next week, and she's become fanatic about it (yay!). She very much wants to watch it together, as do I. But I don't really have a way to play these R2 discs on my TV, and she wants to watch copies that are super vibrant and clean. When you can find the files on daily motion or YT in the correct aspect ratio, they're just abysmally low quality, which is tolerable on a small computer screen. My friend is very...um, well, she's an extremely intense person who often overwhelms me, and her ADHD sometimes means she has trouble chilling about stuff, which in turn stresses me out and then there's a whole thing.
So I want to make her visit fun and to enjoy this show with her with minimum stress to me, but since I stopped doing things like fan vidding, I've kind of lost the ability to figure this stuff out. I have a very old Mac laptop with a DVD drive in it, and an old iMac desktop computer with DVD I could lug out to the living room (we could watch the discs on this if push comes to shove, but what I'd really like to do is watch on my lovely huge TCL television). I know I can adjust the region code on both of these computers, that's not the issue. But how can I hook them up so they'll talk to the TV and let me watch the discs through VLC or something?
The laptop has an ethernet port, two older USB ports, and something that I think is called a mini display port. The old iMac has USBs, Firewires, and something I can't seem to identify whose symbol is a square box with a line on either side of it. Neither has HDMI ports. The TV is a series 6 TCL, and I'm not seeing anything except HDMIs and one USB and one ethernet port.
Are there even any kinds of cables that will let me do this? Will the older laptop, still stuck on Snow Leopard, I think, even engage with a TV if I can find a cable? The last thing I want is to add even more stress trying to figure out why they won't talk to each other, even assuming I get a cable. Is there any hope for this project? You cannot possibly underestimate my intelligence in this arena anymore, so I will not be offended if you talk to me like I'm your great-grandma.
Through the pandemic, I've been doing a weekly watch of this show with a friend who's coming back for a visit next week, and she's become fanatic about it (yay!). She very much wants to watch it together, as do I. But I don't really have a way to play these R2 discs on my TV, and she wants to watch copies that are super vibrant and clean. When you can find the files on daily motion or YT in the correct aspect ratio, they're just abysmally low quality, which is tolerable on a small computer screen. My friend is very...um, well, she's an extremely intense person who often overwhelms me, and her ADHD sometimes means she has trouble chilling about stuff, which in turn stresses me out and then there's a whole thing.
So I want to make her visit fun and to enjoy this show with her with minimum stress to me, but since I stopped doing things like fan vidding, I've kind of lost the ability to figure this stuff out. I have a very old Mac laptop with a DVD drive in it, and an old iMac desktop computer with DVD I could lug out to the living room (we could watch the discs on this if push comes to shove, but what I'd really like to do is watch on my lovely huge TCL television). I know I can adjust the region code on both of these computers, that's not the issue. But how can I hook them up so they'll talk to the TV and let me watch the discs through VLC or something?
The laptop has an ethernet port, two older USB ports, and something that I think is called a mini display port. The old iMac has USBs, Firewires, and something I can't seem to identify whose symbol is a square box with a line on either side of it. Neither has HDMI ports. The TV is a series 6 TCL, and I'm not seeing anything except HDMIs and one USB and one ethernet port.
Are there even any kinds of cables that will let me do this? Will the older laptop, still stuck on Snow Leopard, I think, even engage with a TV if I can find a cable? The last thing I want is to add even more stress trying to figure out why they won't talk to each other, even assuming I get a cable. Is there any hope for this project? You cannot possibly underestimate my intelligence in this arena anymore, so I will not be offended if you talk to me like I'm your great-grandma.
What Static Vagabond said. I have a $50 multiregion DVD player that is, hm, it's gotta be at least ten years old and it's still going.
posted by praemunire at 7:28 PM on August 7, 2021
posted by praemunire at 7:28 PM on August 7, 2021
Response by poster: I knew I should have added this but didn’t for length: I’ve learned the hard way that multi region players don’t handle the 4:3 aspect ratio at all and I haven’t found one that doesn’t stretch the video out. Not to mention I don’t have time.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 7:50 PM on August 7, 2021
posted by kitten kaboodle at 7:50 PM on August 7, 2021
Best answer: Mini DisplayPort to HDMI cable will be the easiest. My old Mac laptop effortlessly connected to a TV this way
posted by O9scar at 9:06 PM on August 7, 2021
posted by O9scar at 9:06 PM on August 7, 2021
MeMail me. I might have the files in a (mostly) lossless format.
posted by yellowcandy at 10:18 PM on August 7, 2021
posted by yellowcandy at 10:18 PM on August 7, 2021
>multi region players don’t handle the 4:3 aspect ratio at all
Does your TV obey an override to display things as 16:9 or 4:3 ratio? There's been buttons to push the stuff on screen into another aspect ratio for the TV's I've had over the past 20 years, it's worth looking out.
posted by k3ninho at 12:36 AM on August 8, 2021
Does your TV obey an override to display things as 16:9 or 4:3 ratio? There's been buttons to push the stuff on screen into another aspect ratio for the TV's I've had over the past 20 years, it's worth looking out.
posted by k3ninho at 12:36 AM on August 8, 2021
Typically those buttons will be on the TV remote and labelled "aspect" or "zoom". Typically there will also be an entry for those things in the Picture section of the TV's main Settings menu.
posted by flabdablet at 1:06 AM on August 8, 2021
posted by flabdablet at 1:06 AM on August 8, 2021
Why don't you just download the files from moviebox, transfer them to your USB stick and plug that into your TV?
posted by ihaveyourfoot at 2:19 AM on August 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by ihaveyourfoot at 2:19 AM on August 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
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Or just buy a cheap multiregion DVD player For ~30 bucks and save the hassle.
posted by Static Vagabond at 7:13 PM on August 7, 2021 [2 favorites]