Kicking and dragging into the 21st Century

We have a beautiful JVC State of the art (at the time) 32" diagonal tube TV that I purchased in the late 1990's (so last century) that still works really well. We have a JVC DVD and a JVC VHS player and a Play Station 2 hooked to it, just in case our 20 something kids want to relive their childhood. It also functioned as our second Dish Satellite TV before I cancelled our contract (and the $120 monthly bill). It will be hard getting rid of it, since it fits nicely in our entertainment center (also so last century) and we can still watch videos and play games (from the last century).

It is an analog tuner TV, so to bring it into the 21st century would require that I acquire a digital signal converter box. If you are old enough and remember, the government gave out vouchers a decade or so ago so that folks could get free converter boxes when over the air broadcasters were required to switch to digital transmissions. Well, now those things cost about $25, or more. In the past I have seen them in thrift stores, but never imagined that I would need one in the future. On top of purchasing the box, I would also have to split the coax going to my Amazon Recast and most likely purchase a booster to strengthen the signal going to the converter box. Besides the cost, and worse yet, to install the splitter, I would have to go into the attic. I really don't want to do that in the Florida summer heat.

So I thought there must be a better way. My 'dumb' LCD TV is now 'Smart' with its Fire TV Stick connected to the Amazon Recast, maybe I could make my 20th century 'dumber' TV smarter with a Fire TV stick. But how do I get HDMI output from the Stick to the RCA inputs on the TV? Well, there is a piece of hardware for that for $13 and it is called an HDMI to RCA AV Composite Video Audio Converter Adapter. I read the reviews and Q & A and it seemed that it was compatible with the Amazon Fire TV Stick. I ordered a refurbished Stick and the HDMI to RCA adapter for less than $50. (Eventually I may have to pay that much to have the TV hauled away!)

A few days later my shipment arrived and I set everything up and it worked as advertised! The Fire TV stick displayed everything that I see on my 51 inch Sony LCD (only in 480i resolution). I felt like Victor Frankenstein as he brought the once dead to life! I did notice that the converter box felt a little warm after some time. Well, after about an hour of operation, I started hearing interference in the audio channel and the converter felt even warmer. In the process of trying to figure out whether it was the converter or the TV, I turned the converter off. After I verified that the TV sound was OK, I connected the converter and it started acting very erratic showing the 'color bars' then intermittently showing a hint of the video feed from the Fire TV Stick. Hmmm, could the problem be the Fire TV Stick (it is a refurbished device)? I took the Stick to another TV and verified that it was working correctly. So I hooked everything back up and this time the screen was black with horrible feedback in the sound channels. The converter box had fried.

The next day I messaged the seller through Amazon and they replied the following day with "From customers feedback, some says fire tv stick works well with our product, some says doesn't work. I think Fire tv stick is incompatible with it." They offered a complete refund without my having to return the device. I replied to them that I accepted their offer and my refund was credited back to my Amazon account three days later. Kudos for great customer service!

I think the problem with that device is that the Fire TV Stick plugs directly into the 'converter' electronics. The Fire TV Stick generates a little bit of heat and perhaps that transferred through connection into the converter chip adding additional heat that was not within its tolerance. There are other converters with a different design that has the electronics 'in line' some distance from the HDMI input. The distance no doubt diminishes the chance of heat transfer from the input device.

So I'll be ordering one of those converters and hopefully it will work. Thus continues the saga of 'kicking and dragging' my 20th century TV into the 21st century. I'll let you know how that works.

Until then, thanks for reading!

Phil