Blood and guts and RCA cables in my teeth

[prog]

Resolve to kill my (cable) television is rising, between several of you egging me on and my just now succeeding in getting my new iPod to output to my TV using a cable I already owned. (This took a little research. It tuns out that iPods switch around the three RCA plugs' duties, so if you plug them into the TV in the usual way, it doesn't work. I hadta read this article to learn the translation, which is basically: Insert the red RCA plug into the yellow TV input socket, the white into the red, and the yellow into the white. Doy.)

I actually called RCN but oddly their salesbots don't work on Sunday evenings. So, tomorrow. If I'm reading the website right I might be able to save more than $60/month, too. We'll see.

Comments

W?

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

T?
F?

Why would they *do* that?

Of course, you're probably violating the DMCA for "hacking" their "encrypted" "hardware"...

Re: W?

[prog.livejournal.com]

The article's author seemed to think it encourages sales of proprietary "docking stations" that do the same thing except they're prettier and are $100.

Re: W?

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Looks like Griffin has let the cat out of the bag...this cable's only $5 overpriced. ;)
http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/homeconnect/

Now, the new clip-on Shuffles look like they *charge* through the 3.5mm jack, which is a bit odd...but I guess they were out of ports.

[jadelennox]

Join us! Come over to the cable-less side!

[prog.livejournal.com]

I didn't know y'all were one of THEM!

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's funny. What's almost as funny is that someone felt the need to expand your one sentence into a two-webpage article to explain it.

Congratulations on your resolve. I like TV options, but I'm old fashioned that way.

[karlvonl.livejournal.com]

The 10th or so comment after the article makes the point that Apple did this so that standard headphones would still work in the jack. This seems more plausible than "OMG Apple lock-in!"

[prog.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I mean, I agree with you, but the reason I already owned the cable was because I use it with my camcorder in the same sort of way, and it color-matches the jacks and plugs with no surprises.

I kind of suspect it's a halfway issue between Apple not going out of their way to screw with consumers, nor going out of the their way to discourage consumers from buying their more expensive accessories (by not documenting how to do a common activity like this themselves).