# Will Roamio OTA do Component Video?



## jferg2002 (Dec 4, 2014)

I called tech support and they said it will thru the composite output with the component breakout cable they sell for the Mini. Bought the cable and it was a no go. Did research on web and found 2 reviews of Roamios and both said they would not do Component Video. Called tech support back and they said it would again and sent me another set of the cables to try. Got them today and still no luck. Bottom line is has anyone got the Roamio to work wit Component Video thru the AV output?


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

It does not have component video. There is no way any magic cable could give you component, unless it actively converts HDMI to component. What tech support told you is BS.


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## jferg2002 (Dec 4, 2014)

I called them before I even bought it to make sure it did and 2 times after I got it and the last guy checked with other guys in the support team and they said they have done it with the Roamios. Not the Mini.


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## bryan4980 (Dec 2, 2011)

What do you mean it was a no go? I have a Roamio basic (the one that will do ota or cable) are you saying you have the Roamio that will only do OTA and you plugged the breakout cable into the 1/8" jack (headphone sized jack) and it does not work? I have a set of breakout cables for mine that I have not yet tried as the basic only has HDMI on the back.


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## jferg2002 (Dec 4, 2014)

I have the Roamio OTA that has the 3.5 mm AV jack on the back. It works fine with the Composite breakout adapter but the Component video adapter will not work in the AV jack as Tech Support said it would.


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

There _was_ a component video 1/8" jack on the base Roamio's that didn't make it into the release / production versions.

I'm not sure if the folks in tech support has access to those boxes which is confusing themselves.


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## fred2 (Jan 20, 2006)

Attached is a picture. I guess it is labeled COMPOSITE (not component). Sorry, the limited file size means the resolution suffers.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

jferg2002 said:


> I have the Roamio OTA that has the 3.5 mm AV jack on the back. It works fine with the Composite breakout adapter but the Component video adapter will not work in the AV jack as Tech Support said it would.


Right. There is no component jack. The Mini has a component jack to plug that cable into.

On a side note, the component and composite cables are probably electrically the same, just with different colors. So if you plug a component breakout cable into the composite out port, you effectively have composite out if you can figure out which colors correspond to yellow, white, and red.


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## bryan4980 (Dec 2, 2011)

jferg2002 said:


> I have the Roamio OTA that has the 3.5 mm AV jack on the back. It works fine with the Composite breakout adapter but the Component video adapter will not work in the AV jack as Tech Support said it would.


Sorry confused component and composite.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Bigg said:


> .........On a side note, the component and composite cables are probably electrically the same, just with different colors. So if you plug a component breakout cable into the composite out port, you effectively have composite out if you can figure out which colors correspond to yellow, white, and red.


Yes, this is correct. The metal electrical part of the hardware connection jack is identical to the composite connection. It's the signal that's attached to it from the motherboard that is different, whether composite with stereo audio or "analog" (Dan, Bigg ) component video.


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

Has anyone tried soldering a connector to the spot where the component output was supposed to be, as seen in the attached picture?










It looks like there might be more than just the connector missing on that part of the board. Does it really take all those components to make RGB? I would think that comes right out of the chipset...


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## collin (Jan 2, 2008)

Arcady said:


> Has anyone tried soldering a connector to the spot where the component output was supposed to be, as seen in the attached picture?


I would love to know the answer to this as well! Really wish I could connect a slingbox to my Roamio basic via component.


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

So the traces between the missing connector and chip are missing a few components.

Capacitors, Resistors and maybe inductors. The values need to be deduced.

A photo from a Tivo Mini board, around the component port would probably be helpful.

Or a Tivo Plus/Pro photo. Or a Tivo Mini that's been scrapped.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

HarperVision said:


> Yes, this is correct. The metal electrical part of the hardware connection jack is identical to the composite connection. It's the signal that's attached to it from the motherboard that is different, whether composite with stereo audio or "analog" (Dan, Bigg ) component video.


Oh god, let's keep the hair-splitting fest in the other thread.


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## jferg2002 (Dec 4, 2014)

You are right the Component and composite plugs are the same just different color rca ends. You could use the component as a composite cable. Guess Tech support needs to do some research. I bought this on there suggestion because I have a 8x8 component video switcher distributing in my home and liked the 4 tuners for OTA.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

jferg2002 said:


> You are right the Component and composite plugs are the same just different color rca ends. You could use the component as a composite cable. Guess Tech support needs to do some research. I bought this on there suggestion because I have a 8x8 component video switcher distributing in my home and liked the 4 tuners for OTA.


This might work.

http://www.amazon.com/E-More®-Component-Video-Converter-Supporting/dp/B00J22LGYG


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

shwru980r said:


> This might work.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/E-More®-Component-Video-Converter-Supporting/dp/B00J22LGYG


A) If your TV is so old it doesn't have HDMI, you need a new TV to be able to get decent HD anyway.

B) What is that thing going to do with HDCP? Scale back to a 480p-ish output?


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

Bigg said:


> B) What is that thing going to do with HDCP? Scale back to a 480p-ish output?


Those are imports from China that are not licensed+certified by the HDMI/HDCP powers that be. A number of them don't bother to follow the rules you're thinking of.

Several years ago, the master key was leaked, and after that point any manufacturer could make up their own key, technology-wise, and still inter-operate with licensed HDMI/HDCP devices. This left legal threats as the only means to limit the distribution of those products.

HDfury is the only one still widely marketed and they get a lot of legal heat for it.

Any product that gets too popular will eventually get taken off Amazon / eBay. They just pop up again like wack-a-mole / mushrooms.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

telemark said:


> Those are imports from China that are not licensed+certified by the HDMI/HDCP powers that be. A number of them don't bother to follow the rules you're thinking of.
> 
> Several years ago, the master key was leaked, and after that point any manufacturer could make up their own key, technology-wise, and still inter-operate with licensed HDMI/HDCP devices. This left legal threats as the only means to limit the distribution of those products.
> 
> ...


Nice, I didn't know that. That's good that the key got leaked, HDCP was a completely idiotic concept from the get-go. It should never have been invented!


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## robnalex (Sep 8, 2002)

Bigg said:


> A) If your TV is so old it doesn't have HDMI, you need a new TV to be able to get decent HD anyway.


 That's just B.S. My old Panny Plasma still renders beautiful PQ at only 780P, and we're not getting a new one until she croaks!


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

robnalex said:


> That's just B.S. My old Panny Plasma still renders beautiful PQ at only 780P, and we're not getting a new one until she croaks!


It's probably those extra 60 vertical pixels that are making the difference...!!!


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## baakre (Oct 8, 2016)

Arcady said:


> Has anyone tried soldering a connector to the spot where the component output was supposed to be, as seen in the attached picture?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I actually added component video to my Roamio Basic yesterday. I happened to have a dead mini to steal parts from. I installed the connector and the set of the 3 inductors that are in each of the YPrPb signal paths. There are also pads for a number of small 0402 sized capacitors as well. However, in my case, just installing the inductors and the connector was all it took to get component video out of my Basic. The whole circuit is a filter network.

I'm sure the OTA would support similar functionality if you added the parts.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

baakre said:


> I actually added component video to my Roamio Basic yesterday. I happened to have a dead mini to steal parts from. I installed the connector and the set of the 3 inductors that are in each of the YPrPb signal paths. There are also pads for a number of small 0402 sized capacitors as well. However, in my case, just installing the inductors and the connector was all it took to get component video out of my Basic. The whole circuit is a filter network. I'm sure the OTA would support similar functionality if you added the parts.


Dude, you're awesome! You should start a side gig modding Roamios with component outputs!


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## jerryez (May 16, 2001)

You can plug Component cables into a composite video out and no matter what you do, the quality of the picture coming out the other end of the cable will be composite video, which is 480i (the same as a VHS tape). I don't care what TiVo tells you, unless they mislabeled the composite output on their TiVo.


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## jerryez (May 16, 2001)

baakre said:


> I actually added component video to my Roamio Basic yesterday. I happened to have a dead mini to steal parts from. I installed the connector and the set of the 3 inductors that are in each of the YPrPb signal paths. There are also pads for a number of small 0402 sized capacitors as well. However, in my case, just installing the inductors and the connector was all it took to get component video out of my Basic. The whole circuit is a filter network.
> 
> I'm sure the OTA would support similar functionality if you added the parts.


If your dead mjni has an HDMI out connector and you provide it to HarperVision, he might replace his HDMI out with yours if the part is the same.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

jerryez said:


> You can plug Component cables into a composite video out and no matter what you do, the quality of the picture coming out the other end of the cable will be composite video, which is 480i (the same as a VHS tape). I don't care what TiVo tells you, unless they mislabeled the composite output on their TiVo.


He's not tapping off the composite output. He's tapping into where TiVo initially thought they would have had a component video 1/8" mini jack on the main board of the Roamio base model (and hopefully the OTA), like they have on the minis. It IS true component video, not composite.



jerryez said:


> If your dead mjni has an HDMI out connector and you provide it to HarperVision, he might replace his HDMI out with yours if the part is the same.


What the heck are you even talking about? Did I ever say that I had a bad HDMI output or something?


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## jerryez (May 16, 2001)

Why do you want to use component out, if your HDMI out is working.


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## tampa8 (Jan 26, 2016)

jerryez said:


> Why do you want to use component out, if your HDMI out is working.


Slingbox? Second TV without using a Mini? Already using HDMI input(s) on the TV? Get around HDCP?


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## nickels (Jan 11, 2010)

For the above scenarios you can get an HDMI splitter for like $25 on amazon. About the same price as the component cable with 1000x the quality.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

nickels said:


> For the above scenarios you can get an HDMI splitter for like $25 on amazon. About the same price as the component cable with 1000x the quality.


Doesn't work in any of the above scenarios (Slingbox, HDCP handshake problems, no more HDMI inputs) except replacing a second Mini. My slingbox has no digital inputs, so component or composite is the only option.

Component video quality and resolution = HDMI for 1080i, 720p and 480p. HDMI is not 1000x better. They are identical. One could argue that component is actually better since it it unencumbered by HDCP, is backward compatible with older TVs and works with extremely long cable runs. Just because it's analog does not automatically make it inferior.


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## RoamioJeff (May 9, 2014)

mdavej said:


> . Just because it's analog does not automatically make it inferior.


+1,000


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

jerryez said:


> Why do you want to use component out, if your HDMI out is working.


Forgive me, but when did I ever say my hdmi out wasn't working, or I wanted to use component video? I simply said the guy was awesome for doing that mod,giving the Roamio a component output.



tampa8 said:


> Slingbox? Second TV without using a Mini? Already using HDMI input(s) on the TV? Get around HDCP?


Exactly, for those that need it. You can add "for those that have older home theater receivers with no hdmi connections" too.


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## nickels (Jan 11, 2010)

I keep mixing up the two, I meant composite not component. Sorry. HDMI is 1000x better than composite connection.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

HarperVision said:


> Exactly, for those that need it. You can add "for those that have older home theater receivers with no hdmi connections" too.


''

That's why I'm using it. 

Not ready to buy a new receiver to replace one that's working fine.

Scott


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## rockstar72 (Nov 16, 2016)

baakre said:


> I actually added component video to my Roamio Basic yesterday. I happened to have a dead mini to steal parts from. I installed the connector and the set of the 3 inductors that are in each of the YPrPb signal paths. There are also pads for a number of small 0402 sized capacitors as well. However, in my case, just installing the inductors and the connector was all it took to get component video out of my Basic. The whole circuit is a filter network.
> 
> I'm sure the OTA would support similar functionality if you added the parts.


I plan to do this also so I can use a Slingbox, looking for donor parts now. Would you be able to add any pictures showing the mod? Locations, making a new hole in the back of the case, etc ? I'm sure I can figure it out, but if yours works, picture would be awesome !


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