TV Out
 

I went on holiday recently, travelling around Spain. You know holidays - getting away from it all, taking it all in. Not being dragged down by the chains of every day life, such as mobile phones and tabs and what-not?

Well, no actually, I went fully geared up. My trip to Spain was going to involve around 20 hours each way on a plane (Singapore Airlines - if you are going economy, it is the best option) so I needed as much distraction as possible for the flights alone, but generally I wanted to be connected.

This was seen as a rather dubious approach to a vacation by my partner. Though by the end of it she was won over completely. Not least of all that time where we got trapped in a stairwell trying to leave our rental apartment for the airport. The n810 tab found a wifi connection and I was able to Skype the rental agency to get us out - we made the flight :)

So the first task of getting there was to get a local SIM for 3G. That was pretty easy except for exceeding my Spanish ability quite dramatically. The Vodafone person seemed to enjoy working out what I was going on about anyway.

So with local 3G I am online. My 8Gb SD card packed with movies and shows and music. The internal card filled with ebooks and a Spanish-English dictionary.

I have a female - female adapter so that I can upload my photos to a server as I go, using microSD everywhere now with adapters.

A mini-hub and an external wifi card to do "penetration testing". Also a pocket AP for those places where they only have a wired internet connection.

So I was all set.

Except for one thing. Travelling around, once in a while you need to just lay up. Take a night off from the sights and sounds and just chill. So I had a tab full of movies, and two of us, and a TV.

And no way to play the movies on the TV from the tab. I toyed around with playing the movies from my camera, as I had brought along the AV cables, but no dice... I would need to run a conversion I think - I didn't get to the bottom of it.

So has anyone explored the possibility of using a USB to TV out from a Nokia tab? I don't think it is feasible - but it would be cool to have the tab as a media centre while on the go, as well as everything else.

Multimedia portable hard drives are pretty good. In Singapore on the return trip I found a media player that took a USB mass storage device as input, and had all the necessary stuff in it to play any movies on the usb device out to a TV. It wasn't much smaller than a multi-media hard drive, but I reckon it would get included in my travel kit next time....

Re: TV Out
 

I remember seeing it discussed, but I didn't see any progress coming from it. There was a project that got USB to VGA adapters working for the most part... I wish the NITs would have the massive tip/ring/sleeve combination for Y/Pr/Pb (iPods) or at least native composite out.

Most point and shoots seem to create photo JPEG movies, which is what it would probably require to playback.

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As far as I know, this is all we've got, and "one update per second" isn't really gonna cut it for watching movies ;)

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It shouldn't be THAT difficult for Nokia to do, they've had TV Out on their high end phones since 2006, and they're now including TV Out on their mid-range phones too like the 6220 and 6500 Slide. Both of those phones cost less than the N810.

I think someone said that there's a chip in the N800 and N810 which is the same chip used to provide TV Out on the N95 smartphone, so in theory the tablets already have TV Out hardware, but it's not connected to anything.

I'd prefer actual TV output instead of VGA because it's quite tricky to find computer monitors when you're out and about. Practically all TV sets (even older models) are compatible with composite or SCART, so they'd all work with TV Out that used composite.

If you're stuck in a hotel, they're unlikely to have a VGA monitor or TV with monitor input.

Re: TV Out
 

it has been my experience that alot of tvs in hotels at least in the usa don't have composite inputs, probably to persuade people to buy movies instead of plugging in their portable dvd players.

it sure is a nice option when they do have it, and i've used my n95 to watch southparks and movies, even surf the web along with a bluetooth keyboard.

hopefully the new NIT will have it built in.

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Yeah, VGA out would be less useful in this scenario imo - but probably useful for people doing presentations or whatever - though video-out would suffice in both situations I think, given that most projectors will take video-in.

Attempting VGA out to use the n810 as a desktop replacement seems a bit of a stretch!

But thats a good point - if my phone supported tv-out, that would be good enough and meant that I didn't have to carry another device. I was planning on getting an n78 but this doesn't support it.

I am trying to get the phone size down as much as possible given that the tab provides the functionality I need that most high end phones provide - but I can't seem to get what I want from a phone without resorting to the n series.

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Well, as far as dodging the $$$ N-series, and getting what you want, check Krisse's tip here, and look into numbered S60 devices.

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I am contemplating getting this external multimedia adapter [uses the N800 like any other USB storage device]

Re: TV Out
 

One of the reasons why the tv out probably has never been even thought for n800/n810 has been that the omap1 and omap2 lcd controllers have been up to 640 rez only->there has been the need for external lcd controller. Now, omap2 at least has tv out on the chip, so it would have been pretty easy to add the tv out. For the epson chip it's not a possibility.

e.g. n95 has tv out. it also has the same processor as n810. Anyway, n95 is pretty nice console all by itself with snes emu and picodrive when used with tv out.(and nice portable one without the tvout)

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So when will we hear the result, pleeeeeeeeeeese? And which one did you end up buying the 1 TB is a little bit too big for the tablet ;) ?

bun

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I'd still love to have even basic, perhaps display-mirroring drivers for the Colorgraphic Impatica ShowMate. Such support would give existing tablets wireless video out, even if it is VGA only.

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Any news about tv-out on n810? By the way it can be done, it was done with nobounds projects, but we don't know what happened to it..

Re: TV Out
 

qgil stated (this post and the one after it) that there will be tablets with video out capability at the Maemo Summit in September. So yes, it can be done, and Nokia is still doing it...

Re: TV Out
 

Yeah, I'm not convinced you want to drive the media from the tab anyway. I think the current best bet (as long as you can suffer another device) is something like this: http://drivecase.stores.yahoo.net/mestcgdiusb2.html (only smaller).

This is a media player that has host mode usb, so it will take a usb storage device, and play any media that is on it out of a TV. So you plug the n8x0 into it, and it simply acts as storage. Then use the onscreen menu to play the media.

It is too big, but I have seen smaller options - the other angle would be to get a hdd media player that had host mode usb. So it has its own storage, but also can accept an external usb storage device. And then this could also act as extended storage for the n810 for whatever (rainbow tables :))

Obviously this isn't the same as tv-out, for presentations or using the n810 as a desktop with screen and keyboard, but that isn't what this thread was getting at - at least initially.

Re: TV Out
 

Looks like it won't be via the 3.5mm jack anyway, the chips (both Epson and OMAP) are not connected to allow it, unless the circuit diagram I have is wrong (please!)

Re: TV Out
 

No, it's correct, there is no wiring.

Re: TV Out
 

Thanks, but does it need a new tablet or it is a software update? Thanks!

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What a pity! My N82 can do it (with slightly too bad quality to be usable for presentations), so sorry to see it unavailable on my N810. TV-Out in 800x600 would be a killer feature, freeing MANY people from lugging around a laptop.

Can we solder ?:D

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Imo they said that even if the tv-out will come it would come in vga? Not sure but i read something about it.. (Cuz of the processor)

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Of course you can!
Steps:
-identify the required balls from the package
-create a pwb layer to put underneath OMAP, so that the TV-OUT lines can be made available, while all the others are just pass-through
-integrate all the components needed for delivering tv out from OMAP to the A/V cable

I suppose with 10 or 20 thousand euros you can find somebody who will eventually succeed with the HW hack.

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To summarize igor's post: "no." :D

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To summarize (something like) Igor's post:

Those !@#$^&*ing BGA-loving !@#$%#$@#$%^ers! Why can't we build this with good ol' PDIPs? Back in the day, I could hack anything I wanted on my kaypro!

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Rats! I have already soldered the memory from a 16gb SDHC card in the place of the two gig internal memory and thereby totally obscured the area for the TV hack.

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Wait, wait, what?! You have? Can you point me to a location with good instructions on this?

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Meh, I was going to do that, but decided I needed the room for the 1080p projector I hacked in instead.

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Either your humor is even more subtle than Derek's, or you missed his, I'm afraid. The memory boost is a sight easier than the TV-out mod explained by Igor, but it's getting up there.

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I'm still working working on soldering in DirectTV DVB into my N800 so I can have portable TV video capture. I even used a Pringles cantenna as my dish!

Qole: Yes, we're joking. :)

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That reminds me when I did similar "hack" on my Atari 520ST to expand the memory from 512KB to 1Meg... I soldered 16 PDIP memory chips on top of the old ones, bent couple pins up to create two new address lines, and soldered those address lines to the memory controller pins using new wires... I think I had to cut couple tracks on the motherboard as well. It was very exciting to turn on the machine first time to see if it still works... and it did!!! :D

Oh well... that was about 20 years ago... :eek:

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I missed his. I don't have an N810, so I don't know how difficult it would be. I just know lots of people do something similar on Linux routers, and it isn't supposed to be brain-surgery-difficult.

Re: TV Out
 

Well, I've seen it mentioned (and discussed it) before, but since this thread is already hopelessly derailed, and I'm feeling too lazy to search, and too polite to tell you to, here's the deal:

The N810 uses what's essentially a nanoSD card; it's a tiny little chip, in some sort of surface-mount packaging, that's electrically compatible with SD. It makes it easy to add fixed memory to a SoC with an SD controller (like the OMAP2xxx), and indeed Nokia used it for just that. The only problem is it's soldered on, and being surface-mount, it won't be easy to desolder. It's also fairly close pitch, so don't bet on an easy time soldering up wires to it after you do get the chip off. But that's what you'd have to do.

Honestly, the easy way to remove the 2 GB is to mill the chip away, starting from the top, and going down to the contacts, but most people don't have the equipment, and I'm not sure I have the nerve. After all, that's completely removing your 2GB, and if all goes well, everything's fine. But then you're stuck without it if the soldering proves to be a bit more than you can do. (And it just might be, for me.)

Still, if anyone reading this still wants to give it a shot, the floppy cable idea you linked is one option; a (physically) big option, but possible, and at least doesn't risk the 32GB SDHC immediately, so you can bail of things don't work and keep that asset.

You'll want some uberfine wire-wrapping wire to go from honkin' big ribbon cable to the solder pads, though. And do post pictures, even if you wreck the thing. :D

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I don't believe you mean the same thing as I mean when you use the word "easy"...

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Compared to desoldering that, it is easy. ;)

(And I'm assuming you have a mill, not trying to whittle it out with a dremel or something; that way there's no risk of going to deep, just drop it 0.005" at a time, and stop when you can see the contacts. For anyone who does have the equipment, it's genuinely easy.)

Re: TV Out
 

The easier way to do this sort of stuff - and i've done it myself with an smd connector during the 770 era, so it _is_ easy - is to use a hot air rework station. Again, not the cheapest tool, but it works and if you have the right tip, you can do a relatively neat job.

http://www.howardelectronics.com/jbc/am7000smd.html

It's fun if you don't mind playing with a smaller scale version of a paint remover.

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Fair enough; I suppose those are cheaper than mills. I was somehow mentally excluding doing things the right way. ;)

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Wow! I remember that! :) I was so glad, though, later when I started buying STe's and they used SIMM cards instead of having to deal with DRAM chips and sockets or any desoldering like the older ST's. I also remember upgrading my TOS chips that way on the ST's too! heh.. hell of a way to upgrade an OS, eh? But at least those old ST's booted up INSTANTLY into their OS, unlike most modern computers.

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But is it so hard to do (by developers) ?
If the nokia n810 wont get tv-out soon im going for tegra.. They should be cheap and POWERFUL :eek:

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Of course you'll need first an announced Tegra device. :)

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Or maybe i'll even get an iphone 3g :eek::eek::eek:

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I borrowed one of these intending to hack my zaurus 6000 with more memory and a bluetooth module, and accidentally broke a ram chip; being BGA, it proved unrepairable.

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it is to be taken in account

said that, i sympathize for the loss