Help...HDMI question

[Chloe]

I have an 2004 Vizio 42" plasma TV that works great...but it does NOT have ANY HDMI connections and this past December my husband I bought the ROKU 3 which uses HDMI to connect to TVs. We've purchased several adapters but none have worked. Closest I came was to get a picture but no sound. Ended up purchasing a new TV but would really like to get this one going for our living room.

We were told by a tech at Best Buy that the ROKU and AppleTV are designed to ONLY hook into a HDMI slot on the TV and will not work with adapters. I have a feeling I'm beating a dead horse but you guys have saved my bacon before...Any ideas or suggestions?

 

[jayn_j]

I believe the adapter you used was an HDMI to DVI adapter. You are on the right track, but it will take a bit of money to get there. DVI is an earlier version of HDMI, and it only did video, not audio. You will need a specialty adapter.

If I had the model number I'd be able to be of more help, but generally you need an adapter that will strip out the audio from the HDMI and convert it to a format your TV will understand. Here is a unit from Monoprice that would do the trick if your TV has a digital audio input jack: http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=101&cp_id=10110&cs_id=1011002&p_id=7974&seq=1&format=2

Another alternative is to purchase a home theater receiver and speakers, or a sound bar that has switching capability. Either one will cost a few hundred dollars. You can then feed the roku, DVD player, etc to the sound bar/receiver for the audio and use your HDMI toy DVI adapter to feed the video to the TV.

If you can give me the model number of the Vizio, I'd be happy to do some research.

 

[HiDefRev]

Or, better yet, buy a new HDTV.