Connecting a streaming box to a pre-HDMI display? (1 Viewer)

[Josh Steinberg]

I have a sort of non-urgent, non-essentially hobby idea I’m trying to solve and maybe we can figure this out together.

I have an older projector sitting in the attic doing nothing - it’s an Epson Powerlite 20 with built-in speakers and both component and composite inputs. It’s native 16x9 480p but accepts sources up to 1080i.

I have a guest room that’s occupied about 50% of the year, but when it’s unoccupied, I sometimes do hobby stuff there, maybe a couple hours a week.

I just had the thought of maybe putting that old PJ and my old screen in here. It’s by no means gonna be the IMAX experience, but for old movies that were mostly sourced from DVD, it’ll be perfectly fine and better than the 32” TV that’s in the room.

So here’s my problem: most of my discs are stored not somewhere easily accessible, so I can’t just plug in an old DVD player and call it a day. I switched to a Plex server years ago. Which is great for everything else I do. Except this old projector doesn’t have HDMI inputs, and I don’t know of any streaming boxes that can run Plex and has either component or composite outputs.

It’s not my forever home and so I’m not looking to spend any real money on a solution to this. I’m just wondering if there’s something obvious I’m not thinking about here that might let me get a little extra mileage out of this stuff.

 

[Chip_HT]

A quick search of "HDMI to component adapters" on Amazon brings up a bunch of devices in the $25 range.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

But do they actually…work?

 

[LeoA]

Xbox 360 supports Plex if you're willing to go the console route. Possibly the Playstation 3 as well. Both of course had component support (Although the last revision of the 360, the 'Xbox 360 E', only has HDMI and composite video).

A cursory glance at Google suggests Plex is still actively supported on the 360 and I imagine used consoles are fairly economical in 2022, even with COVID having raised prices significantly on used videogame hardware and software.

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

According to the reviews, the converters actually work. If the low prices scare you, this one cost about 3 times the norm. It gets better than average positive reviews, although poking around you can find some cheaper ones that review as well.

I actually have one of these and used it at one time. The only thing I remember about it is that will not deliver 5.1 audio from the optical output. Once these devices “break out” the HDMI signal, 5.1 encoding is lost.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Xbox 360 supports Plex if you're willing to go the console route. Possibly the Playstation 3 as well. Both of course had component support (Although the last revision of the 360, the 'Xbox 360 E', only has HDMI and composite video).

A cursory glance at Google suggests Plex is still actively supported on the 360 and I imagine used consoles are fairly economical in 2022, even with COVID having raised prices significantly on used videogame hardware and software.

That’s brilliant - I’m pretty sure my wife has one or both of those consoles sitting in the same attic as the projector. I’m not a gamer so it never would have even occurred to me to check those boxes!

According to the reviews, the converters actually work. If the low prices scare you, this one cost about 3 times the norm. It gets better than average positive reviews, although poking around you can find some cheaper ones that review as well.

I actually have one of these and used it at one time. The only thing I remember about it is that will not deliver 5.1 audio from the optical output. Once these devices “break out” the HDMI signal, 5.1 encoding is lost.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

Also really great to know - thank you!!

 

[Todd Erwin]

I have a converter if you are interested. It is HDMI to component with RCA audio. Never used, made for Monoprice.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I have a converter if you are interested.

Thanks Todd - I’ll hit you up if the Xbox in the attic doesn’t have the appropriate connections. Much appreciated!

 

[Todd Erwin]

Thanks Todd - I’ll hit you up if the Xbox in the attic doesn’t have the appropriate connections. Much appreciated!

If you end up needing it, the earliest I would be able to ship it out would be 9/12 with the holiday and my trip next week.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

If you end up needing it, the earliest I would be able to ship it out would be 9/12 with the holiday and my trip next week.

I can’t imagine needing it any sooner - turns out some of the stuff that I thought was in my attic is in my mother’s attic so it’s gonna take me a while to pull this together. It’s a very slow moving, low priority project

 

[DaveF]

If the xbox 360 doesn’t work out, I’m guessing the component splitters would work for you because you’re not going to be confounded by HDMI encryption problems.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Encryption problems - so does that mean nothing will play with a splitter that comes through an official app like iTunes or Disney+?