Solved! Can you split an ethernet signal to composite outputs?

[nilodavila12]

I have a Samsung UHD 48" TV, which I receive my video signal through an ethernet cable. I would like to hook a DVD recorder to the unit, but without a video out port on the TV the possible solution I'm contemplating is to split the ethernet-in cable to composite out connections. I would buy an ethernet spliter junction , just like the splitter junctions for a telephone line, and from one of the junctions I would install an ethernet to composite splitter. Is this possible?

 

[kanewolf]

Unless you know what signal is on that ethernet cable, there is no way to know. If it REALLY is ethernet, and you are watching streaming video, then you can't just "convert" it to a composite video.

 

[americanaudiophile]

I will guess that you have an ethernet cable with adapters at both ends to take the place of an HDMI cable.
If that's the case then you could use an active HDMI splitter to connect both the TV and recorder or split the ethernet cable and add another HDMI adapter. Then use an active HDMI to AV converter that the recorder can accept. Since the recording won't be HD the quality will be lousy.
If you are using AV-Cat baluns to convert an ethernet cable to an AV cable use then you would just need the same balun.

 

[Alabalcho]

You might also want to check first whether it's "legal" to record the programme you're receiving. It might be also made technically impossible by the owner of the signal / programme.

 

[nilodavila12]

I will guess that you have an ethernet cable with adapters at both ends to take the place of an HDMI cable.
If that's the case then you could use an active HDMI splitter to connect both the TV and recorder or split the ethernet cable and add another HDMI adapter. Then use an active HDMI to AV converter that the recorder can accept. Since the recording won't be HD the quality will be lousy.
If you are using AV-Cat baluns to convert an ethernet cable to an AV cable use then you would just need the same balun.

Sorry for the delay. Is there any way that we could communicate by email, so we could interchange diagrams?

I have some difficulty understanding your answer- with a diagram it would make it easier to understand.


Here's a diagram of my TV connection:

http/i63.tinypic.com/s0zdsi.jpg

 

[Alabalcho]

Before reaching for the solution proposed by @americanaudiophile, you have to provide a lot more information about how you get your TV programme thru an Ethernet cable. Once this is clear, a (possible) solution for splitting that signal to a recorder can be proposed.

So - what is connected to this Ethernet cable, at both ends? For sure, it is not connected directly into your TV (unless yo've subscribed to some form of IPTV).

 

[kanewolf]

Here is the sticky for posting pictures for people on Tom's to access to assist you -- http/www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2580030/detailed-instructions-posting-images-tom-hardware.html

 

[jsmithepa]

Is there any way that we could communicate by email

Forums don't work like that, this is not a private consulting service. Nobody get paid here. Forum like this is designed so others browsing can see solutions and benefit the public. Kinda like a call in radio show.

 

[nilodavila12]

Before reaching for the solution proposed by @americanaudiophile, you have to provide a lot more information about how you get your TV programme thru an Ethernet cable. Once this is clear, a (possible) solution for splitting that signal to a recorder can be proposed.

So - what is connected to this Ethernet cable, at both ends? For sure, it is not connected directly into your TV (unless yo've subscribed to some form of IPTV).

Here's the diagram of my connection: http/i63.tinypic.com/s0zdsi.jpg

I get Amazon Prime streaming through the internet, as well as Apple TV.

 

[nilodavila12]

Is there any way that we could communicate by email

Forums don't work like that, this is not a private consulting service. Nobody get paid here. Forum like this is designed so others browsing can see solutions and benefit the public. Kinda like a call in radio show.

Kanewolf posted how members could post images, so that will help a lot>

Thanks Kanewolf.

 

[nilodavila12]

Here is the sticky for posting pictures for people on Tom's to access to assist you -- http/www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2580030/detailed-instructions-posting-images-tom-hardware.html

Thanks- this will help a lot.

 

[kanewolf]

Based on the diagram, you are already "splitting" the ethernet cable with the switch. What more do you want to "split"? Is the "Internet" on your diagram coming directly from your ISP? Is so, what you need is not a switch but a home router. Your ISP will only provide one public IP address. You get a home router and that one public IP address becomes many private IP addresses.

 

[nilodavila12]

Based on the diagram, you are already "splitting" the ethernet cable with the switch. What more do you want to "split"? Is the "Internet" on your diagram coming directly from your ISP? Is so, what you need is not a switch but a home router. Your ISP will only provide one public IP address. You get a home router and that one public IP address becomes many private IP addresses.

How will I connect the DVD recorder?

 

[kanewolf]

Based on the diagram, you are already "splitting" the ethernet cable with the switch. What more do you want to "split"? Is the "Internet" on your diagram coming directly from your ISP? Is so, what you need is not a switch but a home router. Your ISP will only provide one public IP address. You get a home router and that one public IP address becomes many private IP addresses.

How will I connect the DVD recorder?

There is nothing to connect it to to record. You could connect it to the TV to play, but you don't have any sources to record from in that diagram. The RCA connections on the TV would be for input.

 

[Alabalcho]

To put it another way: You're watching "digital" signals - Amazon / Apple streaming over Internet. Your recorder is "old-school", analogue device, it needs analogue signal from eg old-school set-top-box (with analogue outputs).

Due to copyright laws, HDMI signals are (mostly) encrypted, and there are no consumer-level recorders accepting HDMI signal. THe fact that your TV processes directly Amazon video does not make it any easier.

And, as I said in my first post - it would be against TOS (terms-of-service) with Amazon, Apple etc to record their programmes. If you need a copy of their shows, you have (almost) no other way but to buy them on DVD.

And last but not least: Your drawing should be put as an example for other posters to follow when they explain their problems!

 

[engineer5261]

Do you know the pinout of the Ethernet/RJ45 cable? Do you know what kind of protocol / interface they are using (probably not as that is proprietary information)? That cable has 8 contacts (8P8C). How do you know that the video signal can be completely transmitted using only 3 of these 8 contacts? You are probably receiving digital input, but you want to somehow convert that to analog RCA signal which can not be done with a simple connector.

I think what you will need to do is completely understand the interface pins on the ethernet connector and each pins function. You will then need to design a circuit / board with an application processor code/software that can decrypt the incoming signal, perform the digital to analog conversion and then output it on an RCA interface.

Apart from the legal concerns as stated by Alabalcho, I do not think it would be easy, even if you did find and understand all the protocols / encryption techniques etc. You would require knowledge of all their protocols, a degree in electrical engineering and probably someone who has designed low power high speed circuits before.

I do not think this is worth attempting

 

[Alabalcho]

Do you know the pinout of the Ethernet/RJ45 cable? Do you know what kind of protocol / interface they are using (probably not as that is proprietary information)? That cable has 8 contacts (8P8C). How do you know that the video signal can be completely transmitted using only 3 of these 8 contacts? You are probably receiving digital input, but you want to somehow convert that to analog RCA signal which can not be done with a simple connector.

I think what you will need to do is completely understand the interface pins on the ethernet connector and each pins function. You will then need to design a circuit / board with an application processor code/software that can decrypt the incoming signal, perform the digital to analog conversion and then output it on an RCA interface.

Apart from the legal concerns as stated by Alabalcho, I do not think it would be easy, even if you did find and understand all the protocols / encryption techniques etc. You would require knowledge of all their protocols, a degree in electrical engineering and probably someone who has designed low power high speed circuits before.

I do not think this is worth attempting

Did you ever read the whole discussion about that? It's perfectly clear that that Ethernet cable is not carrying video signals, but Ethernet frames. Even if OP reads Ethernet 100Base electrical standard, and TCP/IP protocol, and frames, what device the OP would need to decode / decrypt the Amazon Video / Apple TV stream, re-encode it back, and output it on analogue outputs suitable for the recorder?

 

[engineer5261]

Do you know the pinout of the Ethernet/RJ45 cable? Do you know what kind of protocol / interface they are using (probably not as that is proprietary information)? That cable has 8 contacts (8P8C). How do you know that the video signal can be completely transmitted using only 3 of these 8 contacts? You are probably receiving digital input, but you want to somehow convert that to analog RCA signal which can not be done with a simple connector.

I think what you will need to do is completely understand the interface pins on the ethernet connector and each pins function. You will then need to design a circuit / board with an application processor code/software that can decrypt the incoming signal, perform the digital to analog conversion and then output it on an RCA interface.

Apart from the legal concerns as stated by Alabalcho, I do not think it would be easy, even if you did find and understand all the protocols / encryption techniques etc. You would require knowledge of all their protocols, a degree in electrical engineering and probably someone who has designed low power high speed circuits before.

I do not think this is worth attempting

Did you ever read the whole discussion about that? It's perfectly clear that that Ethernet cable is not carrying video signals, but Ethernet frames.
I missed that, sorry, that should make things slightly less tricky
Even if OP reads Ethernet 100Base electrical standard, and TCP/IP protocol, and frames, what device the OP would need to decode / decrypt the Amazon Video / Apple TV stream, re-encode it back, and output it on analogue outputs suitable for the recorder?

Like I said he will need to design the hardware and software himself. I imagine this could be done using an ARM based App processor like an iMX with an ethernet physical interface, or perhaps a cheaper microcontroller like an STM32 along with the relevant DAC's and any cryptography HW. If he understands the encryption and protocol he will have to write the code himself to decrypt it and extract the sound / video data to the analog outputs on the target chip, composite out can then be reconstructed in software and brought out to a physical connector.

Of course you may hit many brick walls during development and realize things like "oh I can't do it on this processor, oh I need something faster, oh i'm getting EMI interference I need to make some signal conditioning chains or put ferrite shielding, maybe the noise is from something else in my circuit. Possible but I do not think it's worth it given the time and effort involved and the thousands of pages of standards documentation and skills that will need to be picked up

But I do not think this research project is worth it.

 

[nilodavila12]

Do you know the pinout of the Ethernet/RJ45 cable? Do you know what kind of protocol / interface they are using (probably not as that is proprietary information)? That cable has 8 contacts (8P8C). How do you know that the video signal can be completely transmitted using only 3 of these 8 contacts? You are probably receiving digital input, but you want to somehow convert that to analog RCA signal which can not be done with a simple connector.

I think what you will need to do is completely understand the interface pins on the ethernet connector and each pins function. You will then need to design a circuit / board with an application processor code/software that can decrypt the incoming signal, perform the digital to analog conversion and then output it on an RCA interface.

Apart from the legal concerns as stated by Alabalcho, I do not think it would be easy, even if you did find and understand all the protocols / encryption techniques etc. You would require knowledge of all their protocols, a degree in electrical engineering and probably someone who has designed low power high speed circuits before.

I do not think this is worth attempting

Thanks for your input. My solution seems to be a digital DVR recorder, like MythTV, and then record the videos to my DVD recorder.

 

[nilodavila12]

Do you know the pinout of the Ethernet/RJ45 cable? Do you know what kind of protocol / interface they are using (probably not as that is proprietary information)? That cable has 8 contacts (8P8C). How do you know that the video signal can be completely transmitted using only 3 of these 8 contacts? You are probably receiving digital input, but you want to somehow convert that to analog RCA signal which can not be done with a simple connector.

I think what you will need to do is completely understand the interface pins on the ethernet connector and each pins function. You will then need to design a circuit / board with an application processor code/software that can decrypt the incoming signal, perform the digital to analog conversion and then output it on an RCA interface.

Apart from the legal concerns as stated by Alabalcho, I do not think it would be easy, even if you did find and understand all the protocols / encryption techniques etc. You would require knowledge of all their protocols, a degree in electrical engineering and probably someone who has designed low power high speed circuits before.

I do not think this is worth attempting

Did you ever read the whole discussion about that? It's perfectly clear that that Ethernet cable is not carrying video signals, but Ethernet frames.
I missed that, sorry, that should make things slightly less tricky
Even if OP reads Ethernet 100Base electrical standard, and TCP/IP protocol, and frames, what device the OP would need to decode / decrypt the Amazon Video / Apple TV stream, re-encode it back, and output it on analogue outputs suitable for the recorder?

Like I said he will need to design the hardware and software himself. I imagine this could be done using an ARM based App processor like an iMX with an ethernet physical interface, or perhaps a cheaper microcontroller like an STM32 along with the relevant DAC's and any cryptography HW. If he understands the encryption and protocol he will have to write the code himself to decrypt it and extract the sound / video data to the analog outputs on the target chip, composite out can then be reconstructed in software and brought out to a physical connector.

Of course you may hit many brick walls during development and realize things like "oh I can't do it on this processor, oh I need something faster, oh i'm getting EMI interference I need to make some signal conditioning chains or put ferrite shielding, maybe the noise is from something else in my circuit. Possible but I do not think it's worth it given the time and effort involved and the thousands of pages of standards documentation and skills that will need to be picked up

But I do not think this research project is worth it.

Thanks for your engineering input.