iPad - ATV - Projector

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Level 1

16 points

iPad - ATV - Projector

With iOS 5 coming out soon and with the sweet ability to mirror your screen wirelessly I have decided to embark on a new way to deliver material to classroom participants. I have many apps on my iPad that I want to be able to share with students as well as the presentations, I show a lot of videos as well. I have it boiled down to must have items an iPad, ATV, HDMI Cable, Digital Optical Cable, and Speakers, then the nice to haves just in case - a projector and Airport Extreme.

So here is my issue - I am pretty sure I have the easy way figured out, with my projector I have an HDMI input so I go from ATV to the projector with an HDMI cable for sound I go from the Digital Optical on ATV to a Jawbone Jambox (Awesome!!). I have an Airport Express setup for my own Wi-Fi Network in case I cannot get on the local one (This is for mobile training in different places) to go from the iPad to the ATV. My projector (Dell M409WX) supports HDMI in from my iPad using the Apple HDMI adapter currently. That should work, if you disagree please tell me as I have not tried this.

My big problem is using on site projecters in the classroom, training room, conference room, etc. These usually always have a VGA connector for a visitor to hook up to. If I HAVE to can I go from HDMI out on the ATV to VGA on the projector? This is for video only, audio is still handled by the Jambox (Still AWESOME!!). Can I go from HDMI to VGA, physically I know I can with an HDMI-DVI cable and a DVI to VGA adaptor (haven't found an HDMI-VGA cable), but will the ATV and the projector handle this correctly?

Thanks in advance!!!!

Mac Mini & MBA 2010, Mac OS X (10.6.6), iPhone 4

Posted on Jul 13, 2011 4:02 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 13, 2011 4:33 PM in response to cmailliard

VGA will almost certainly be analogue, you will need an HDMI to VGA hardware converter. The problem you may come across is that VGA doesn't support HDCP which is found in movie rentals and netflix, this may not be an issue for the classroom. Another problem is that your projector will need to be widescreen and support 720p. If your projectors fit these requirements and you aren't wanting to watch protected content you should be OK.

DVI can be analogue or digital, which means you can have a DVI to VGA cable and an HDMI to DVI cable, but the two won't work together.

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Answer 2

cmailliard Author

Level 1

16 points

Jul 13, 2011 4:51 PM in response to Winston Churchill

Thanks thats kinda what I have been finding here and on other forums.

My projector is widescreen, but classroom projectors are not. The movies we watch are training videos and probably not HDCP, but just in case how would I find out?

Any leads on where to find a quality hardware converter? Most everything I am finding is for VGA to HDMI. I found this cable with good reviews - do I trust them? I also found this from HP.

Thanks again

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Answer 3

Jul 13, 2011 5:16 PM in response to cmailliard

If the projectors are not widescreen then anything you show on them will be squashed unless the converter is able to scale, again if the projectors won't support 720p then it likely won't work at all. You'd need to check the manual to see if the projector supports 720p and HDCP, although if it's only VGA it most likely won't support HDCP.

I haven't used a converter so I couldn't recommend one, but I'm not aware of any that scale.

A cable won't do, you'd need a converter.

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Answer 4

g ch

Level 1

0 points

Jul 27, 2011 4:51 AM in response to cmailliard

Just out of curiousity, how are you connecting the ATV to the Jawbone Jambox? How do you go from the digital optical cable to the inputs on the Jambox?

thanks

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