# TiVo Mini AV Cable (Component)



## Jim1348 (Jan 3, 2015)

I bought a TiVo Mini from Ebay this week and it arrived today. I set it up through HDMI, but now I want to connect it to a television via the AV cable. The Mini had an AV cable in the box, but it does not display anything on the television when I select AV on it. Do I need to do something special on the Tivo or on the Mini for the AV cable to work? I called TiVo support and they said that they do not support the AV cable.

I am also wondering if the AV cable that came in the Mini box is not compatible with the TiVo Mini. When I look at TiVo online, the cable(s) that they sell looks different than the one that came in the TiVo Mini box.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

A Mini has component (R,G,B) and composite (R,W,Y) outputs. To use component you need two cables since the audio is the R&W. There are many variations of mini to RCA cables. Not all work. There is no Mini "setting". All outputs are active all the time.


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## thyname (Dec 27, 2010)

This may work for you:

https://www.amazon.com/TiVo-Mini-Co...69920847&sr=1-1&keywords=tivo+component+cable


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Jim1348 said:


> The Mini had an AV cable in the box, but it does not display anything on the television when I select AV on it. Do I need to do something special on the Tivo or on the Mini for the AV cable to work? I called TiVo support and they said that they do not support the AV cable.


They may not support the AV cable that came with your Mini, but I'd hope that they would at least support the AV Breakout Cable Kit that they sell for the Mini, just for purposes such as yours.

See: https://www.tivo.com/shop/detail/av-cable



> I am also wondering if the AV cable that came in the Mini box is not compatible with the TiVo Mini. When I look at TiVo online, the cable(s) that they sell looks different than the one that came in the TiVo Mini box.


Note that the pic on TiVo's store is of 2 cables, as described by JoeKustra, above. The yellow mini pin goes with the composite connections, and the green pin with the component connections.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

*DISCLAIMER: The following information is provided without warranty.*

If you have just one cable, with Yellow, White and Red connections, then you may be able to temporarily establish a composite connection... though you may first want to check each connection against your TV's yellow composite video in connection, to determine which connection on your Mini-ish cable is carrying video.

(I've seen reports of these breakout cables from other devices being sold as usable on a Mini, but the video signal is actually carried on the red or white inputs, owing to a different connection design for the mini pin.)

edit: p.s. See also:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=508551
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=502081


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

good post... showing the color-coding for the component and composite(A/V) connections on the back of the Mini, with the colors mapping to the AV Breakout Cable Kit sold by TiVo (or Weaknees), linked above.



steve614 said:


> I would think there will be two versions of this cable, color coded accordingly. Notice how the jacks on the back of the mini are color coded.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Time_Lord (Jun 4, 2012)

these work fine, you need both
http://www.ebay.com/itm/251257913264
http://www.ebay.com/itm/251257913187

These aren't color coded to match the jacks on the back of the TiVO Mini (I have the older mini and the jacks aren't color coded anyway), simple the RED/GREEN/BLUE cable goes into the green jack or component, the RED/WHITE/YELLOW goes into the Yellow jack or A/V jack.

-TL


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## henrymc (Aug 8, 2016)

Side note: All Tivo devices I've tried it on will let you use an AV *audio* cable in place of a video cable. Red goes to red input on the tv. Black goes to TV's yellow video input. You only get mono sound tho, not stereo. This is manufacturer dependent (ie. random chance which wire maps to what) since they didn't expect anybody to do it, there's no standard. But nothing -- in my experience -- blows up either. Why did I do it? have an old TV for my pet to watch. lol.


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## SeaDee (Jan 8, 2019)

henrymc said:


> Side note: All Tivo devices I've tried it on will let you use an AV *audio* cable in place of a video cable. Red goes to red input on the tv. Black goes to TV's yellow video input. You only get mono sound tho, not stereo. This is manufacturer dependent (ie. random chance which wire maps to what) since they didn't expect anybody to do it, there's no standard. But nothing -- in my experience -- blows up either. Why did I do it? have an old TV for my pet to watch. lol.


Thank you for this tip! I just picked up a Tivo Mini (A93) on Craigslist to hook up to an older/no HDMI 15" early HDTV for the home office. My stash of normal yellow/red/white-to-3.5mm cables weren't working and didn't want to buy another cable. But I did have a black/yellow-to-3.5mm cable which did work!

On the TV, I plugged black into yellow, and yellow into white (red worked too); 3.5mm into AV on the Mini.
Being that it's an older, smaller TV in a home office, I don't really care about the picture quality right now, so I was happy to use what I had.

Thank you!


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