Composite AV Cable, Universal Dock and iPhone

That is correct. The video cables do not support playing just music files

You will need a 3.5mm to dual RCA cable to do this. They are available at any audio supply store.

No, that is not correct. You can play your songs through this combo just fine (I have no idea where he got that information).

I would try resetting your phone and if that doesn't work, a restore. It will play music through the composite video to your TV (but it won't show album art).

Interesting. It wouldn't work when I tried it with mine (which is how I got the information)

I'll have to tinker with it when I get home...

Well, something odd's going on. I tried mine again at lunch just to make sure and it worked just fine.

But pretty obviously there are some folks who can't get it to work. I can't imagine what the variables would be here -- did you try it more than once? Do you watch a lot of stuff on your TV? (I watch something just about every single day -- don't know if that makes a difference except maybe the repeated plugging and unplugging may be clearing something up?).

It works for both my component as well as composite cables, too. Indeed, I can't get it not to work. The album art doesn't display (which is a pity -- that really should be the case).

I don't use it very often. Just to entertain the kids in the car. I tried playing music through it once and it didn't work so I just shrugged and let it be (I have different cables to hook up to the car stereo so I didn't really care.)

I'll have to play with it some more. Not because I need it to work, but I cant stand there being a feature I don't know about!

jcalmon,

While it takes some looking through, this article discusses which video out accessories work with which iPods and the iPhone.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300233

A couple things to note, the iPod Universal Dock is an older dock that is not longer sold by Apple, but a few resellers may still have, and does not work with the iPhone. If you want to use video out with a dock you need the Apple Universal Dock. I would also recommend getting the inserts for the iPhone so that the iPhone fits correctly on the dock connector in the Apple Universal Dock.

When using the component cable, your TV must be configured to display the correct resolution. If the TV is set to 720p or 1080i HD only, it will not display the video output from the iPhone.

Hope this helps,

Nathan C.

I just bought the Composite video cable. Hooked my iPhone with it up to a TV and found that nothing comes out the video outputs until you play a movie or hit "play" for a slideshow. Then you get audio and video. When you play music in iPod mode, it does NOT go through the cable.

So if someone else is playing music only with the AV cable, I would be interested in knowing how you got it to do it. Can't find any settings for this.

Jim