Moved from UK to Canada, need help with few connections!

OK, so a little bit of a weird request here. I bought the WD TV Live HD about 6 months back and it was working great back in Ireland. But have now moved over here and need a little bit of help.

I used to connect the TV Live via HDMI but our new TV over here doesn’t have HDMI, only component (blue, green, red) video inputs. Can I buy a cheap HDMI-component cable and get best picture quality? At present I’m using the composite/phono (red, yellow and white) to get video but quality is very poor, so would like to try out the component connection. The TV is a 9 year old 32" CRT Panasonic HDTV so takes component in at 480p and 1080i i think.

Secondly both my hard drive (1TB WD elements) and WDTV Live have UK plugs. Both have adapters that can be slipped off though, to just change the plug ends. Should I try to find little fittings that can change these or is it best to try and just buy new transformers/plugs altogether? AT present I have the WDTV Live plugged into one travel adapter and can only then run videos off a flash drive.

Any advice, ideas or thoughts would be great! I’m in Toronto so if cables/transformers can be bought somewhere downtown then that’d be better than online. Thanks again!

Well, there’s no such thing as HDMI-to-component adapters; you’d have to buy an active switch or scaler to do that.

I’m guessing you discarded the Component cables that came with the unit?  If so, you can order a new one from WD, or consult the FAQ section 1H for more information.

I know canada uses 120V normally; I can’t recall what ya’ll use over on the other side of the lake… 240V?  

Just use your composite lead to plug into component.

Change the 3.5 jackplug to the next socket labelled ‘YPbPr’ and connect as below:

YELLOW is the same as GREEN
WHITE is the same as BLUE

RED is the same as RED

You could try and see if you could get the correct slip on plugs which would be best or you could simply get another adaptor.

Thanks for the responses. I’m going to do my best to get someone to try find the old box at home and see if I have the old component cable that came with the unit and was never used in there. If I were to use my existing composite cable and put it into the YPbPr socket, will this bring audio in too?

And I’m somewhat clueless how to find the correct slip on plugs so will probably end up having to buy new adapters. The current transformer takes in 100-240V and converts to 10V so there shouldn’t be any issue with hard drive, can these power units be bought online? The current one for the HD (with slip on plug) is made by a company called Ktec…

edit: http://www.bizrate.com/electrical-supplies/oid1784932104.html would this one be suitable for both the WD TV live & the 1TB Elements HD?

The Power Supplies are available via the WD Accessories Store, too.

http://store.westerndigital.com/store/wdus/en_US/DisplayCategoryListPage/categoryID.13092600

Thanks, this product, http://store.westerndigital.com/store/wdus/en_US/DisplayAccesoryProductDetailsPage/productID.108411200/categoryID.13096000/parid.13092600/catid.13096000 , will obviously work for the WD TV HD player but does anyone know of a unit there that can power a 1TB WD elements drive?

Those PS’s support more than just the product they say,.  If you drill down, it gives a more complete list.

Example, the 18W power adapter supports the WD Elements 

  • WD Elements Desktop  (WDBAAUxxxx)

Great, many thanks, I think that’s the power problem solved anyway.

Just one remaining question then. If I do switch over to component video, how do I get audio out of the WD TV Live? Can I use the same composite cable output and just leave the yellow video connection out?

panda516 wrote:

Great, many thanks, I think that’s the power problem solved anyway.

 

Just one remaining question then. If I do switch over to component video, how do I get audio out of the WD TV Live? Can I use the same composite cable output and just leave the yellow video connection out?

Yes you need to have a cable connected to the AV output socket for sound. The red and white are the right and left audio channels and the yellow is video.  If you use component then you can forget the video output on the composite lead.

If you have to buy one the connection details for the plug are detailed on the FAQ at 1H.

http://community.wdc.com/t5/General-Discussions/WDTV-FAQ/td-p/32135#general

Great, looks like I’m good to go, thanks RichUK!