I know it might sound silly even thinking about doing something such, but the thing is that I got this beautiful 30 years old RCA ColorTrack 2000 television set. The look and feel fits the country house perfectly. I promised myself I wouldn’t replace it unless it exploded or something. Since it got so far already, got chances are it’s going to work for awhile still ( unlike today’s electronic ). Back then this model was really TOP SHIT really. Back then it must have been around 2000-3000$ as it seems I got the wooden cabinet deluxe model. But the thing is that I really like technology and gadgets. Also, it just happens that I did embraced the religion of Apple. That means I do need Apple all over for everything to be happy and talk to each other. So the goal is simple: I want to use an Apple TV 3 on that old television set.

THE CHALLENGE

The challenge is somehow obvious, there is a hefty 30 years of technology between the two pieces of electronic I would like to use together. By now, most everything that connects to a television uses a HMDI  connector. You have to actually look pretty hard to find anything with that good old composite connector. HMDI  isn’t just about the connector, it is about the type of signal coming out of it. Back then, with analog signal, even though there was many different types of connectors you could often tweak/spice and make up something yourself if you knew your way around. Now with the digital signal the game is totally different. Connectivity isn’t all, the screen size is also a concern. Being an old regular TV, you can expect an Apple TV not knowing or making alot of efforts properly display on a 4:3 format device.

THE SOLUTION OR IS IT ?

for one thing, the connectivity isn’t just about connector format … the signal itself is completely different. HDMI is about a digital signal whereas the old TV is a bit too old to know about our contemporary digital age. So a digital to analog converter is required. There isn’t that many to choose from. I did spent quite a few evening and only found a few. I ended up buying the from Sabrent: http://www.sabrent.com/category/tv-video-capture/DA-HDRC/

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815276025 I paid about 120$ (USD) for it. I though the device was a bit expensive but I did understand that it most likely includes some micro-controller for parsing the digital signal and produce an old fashioned analog TV signal. I am semi-happy with the device. It doesn’t what it is claims. I did failed thinking about screen format, I guess I was assuming the device would be smart enough or

 Also, I found out that my 2008 MacBook Pro is not AirPlay mirroring capable. Newer Macs have a dedicated H264 encoder/decoder chip so that the main processor isn’t slowed down while mirroring screen over the AirPLay protocol. So, because my MacBook Pro cannot Airplay mirroring I had to purchase yet something else: Air Parrot.

I didn’t mind the 10$ ( or was it 20$ ? ) the software feels solid and works beautifully. Apart from an exceptional machine crash on installing the audio driver ( which actually happened on two different Macs of two different generations ) the software has been flawless. Of course the 2008 MacBook Pro not being equipped with the dedicated H264 encoder, Air Parrot takes a good deal of CPU. Of course it depends on the size of what is being mirrored and many other factor but in my case, playing 30 fps at maximum video quality without any under scan, Air Parrot takes just a bit less than 40% I use VLC and define additional video formats which I then use so the image ratio on the TV set matches the image ratio on the computer screen.

CONCLUSION

The setup isn’t perfect and as a few gotchas.

Playing movies with iTunes

Pros

• Does allow usage of the Apple TV remote.
• Simple overall usage.

Cons

• Plays only .m4v files.
• Doesn’t allow tweaking video aspect ratio

Playing movies with VLC

Pros

• Allows tweaking of aspect ratio
• Allows playing most anything (beside iTunes purchased items)

Cons

• The Apple TV remote is useless
• Requires additional software to stream to the Apple TV (unless you are running OSX Mountain Lion and a 2011 or newer Mac )
• Doesn’t allow tweaking video aspect ratio

As you can expect I can only play .m4v video files and only through iTunes. Because iTunes doesn’t give you much control movies play with an incorrect aspect ratio but at least playgin Although I able to play anything else with VLC mirroring the screen or application window to the Apple TV using Air Parrot. Because neither Air Parrot or the Sabrent DA-HDRC seems to be reporting

LINKS

http://www.airsquirrels.com/airparrot/       One trick I’m using to compensate right now UPDATE: I believe that since a recent update of the Apple TV 3 firmware, the video display is now p