A Few Questions About Older Sony "HD-ready" CRTs, I-Link, etc.

[Seeker47]

One of these being the KD-34XBR2. A former salesperson was the source of misinformation that this had HDMI connections, but, according to the manual diagrams -- NO. I see Component and I-Link. (What was the deal with I-Link ? An earlier failed precursor to HDMI ?)

Will be needing to connect this up for someone -- to a latter day digital cable box and to one of the Magnavox DVDRs. (Previously, there was just analog cable going in, with no box.) Component appears to be what they call "HD In", good for up to 1080i it says, and there appear to be two sets of them. So, that would be the cable box and the DVDR in. Max. quality into the DVDR is going to be S-Video, so we'd have to make sure the cable box has S-Video Out and then just hope that TW does not shut this off remotely anytime soon, as discussed in the "FCC Caves to Big Media" thread.

Any other issues or gotchas I should know about, before we try to move this 200 lb. monitor to re-cable it ?

[redwudz]

Sony I-link = FireWire, a high performance serial bus. More likely for FireWire camcorder input connections as it is really a data connection usually for DV AVI, not video as in component or S-video. Analog component would be the best quality, very close to HDMI, just not a digital signal as HDMI is. (Actually, not sure what they used I-link for with a TV or monitor. )

I think I would plug in a DVD player that has component out to see what you get before moving the monitor.

[usually_quiet]

from https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/295699-Video-from-Laptop-to-TV-Using-Firewire

The TV IEEE-1394 port was probably intended for a D-VHS VCR MPeg2 transport steam. All this would be explained in your manual.

[edDV]

I never came across this model. What country is "State of Mind"?

I did find a US spec reference that indicates 2 analog component inputs at the rear. Is this true? It also says no IEEE-1394. Got a link to the manual?
http://www.crutchfield.com/p_15834XBR2/Sony-KD-34XBR2.html?tp=163

Bottom line, you would connect this TV 1080i with analog components. Some models allowed 720p* analog component. Check the manual. Actual screen resolution (as viewed from the front) would be ~ 1024x1080i or ~ 1024x540p.


*PS: After reading more of the Crutchfield link, 720p is not supported, Only 1080i and 480p. It does have an ATSC (over the air) tuner but nothing for QAM (digital cable).

[aedipuss]

sony had what they referred to as "s-link" on tvs, audio receivers, dvd players, etc for awhile. it was a way to connect them using a single remote before "universal" remotes became popular. that may be what was called i-link here.

[edDV]

sony had what they referred to as "s-link" on tvs, audio receivers, dvd players, etc for awhile. it was a way to connect them using a single remote before "universal" remotes became popular. that may be what was called i-link here.

I think sony has only used "iLink" for IEEE-1394 (s100, to s400). They use it for DV/HDV and for laptop networking/external disk. Essentially ilink=Firewire=IEEE-1394.

Japan initially pushed IEEE-1394 for HDTV interconnection. They implemented an MPeg2 (m2t) protocol for DVHS machines. This was adopted by cable/sat tuners but rejected by ATSC/DVB committees at the last minute in favor of uncompressed HDMI with Intel's HDCP encryption. The reason was m2t decoding added cost to the HDTV.

Good news is the FCC here in the USA forced IEEE-1394 to be unencrypted (for broadcast stations) to give Tivo type boxes a chance.