Can anyone recommend a good quality HDMI-to-composite converter? My goal is to play video content (Netflix, etc.) on my iPhone and pipe the output to my Blonder-Tongue agile modulator to broadcast to vintage TVs in my house. I already have an Apple AV adapter that plugs into the phone's Lightning port and gives HDMI output.

Shopping around online, I see quite a few options, ranging in price from under $20 to a few hundred bucks. Has anyone tried one of these?

Thanks!

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
https://antiqueradio.org/index.html

I use this HDMI2AV I picked up a couple off eBay for about $6 each. I feed a Roku into it as a source. They both work flawlessly.

I've used this one and it works well.

http://www.altronics.com.au/p/a3504a-hd ... converter/

You may be able to find the same model from a local source but Altronics does ship worldwide AFAIK

That looks like the same one, just seen it!

WOW What a huge difference in price for the exact same unit.

Yes I saw that.

However, by the time you take the 20% wholesale discount you get by registering, the exchange rate (AU$1 = US$0.68) and the shipping cost it works out not that much different for us here. Plus we get it the next day.

Last year I bought and tested every model I could find on the market today and I was dissatisfied with all of them. The problem is that none properly handled the 16x9 to 4x3 conversion. What I wanted was one that would center-cut the 16x9 image. However, I would have settled for a letter-box conversion (black bars on the top and bottom). None would do this. They all distorted the image by compressing it horizontally to fit.

-Matthew

Ugh, I hate those compressed pictures.

What about the more expensive models? I haven't looked at details, but perhaps they would offer more control than a basic converter?

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
https://antiqueradio.org/index.html

Using a Roku box as a source, I had no issue with that. I set the output of the Roku to 4X3. It seemed work fine.

You could letter-box it yourself by mis-adjusting the height control. You could even add a switch and a resistor to make the height change easy!

The advantage of Tom's pragmatic suggestion is you don't lose any resolution.....

If you set the source device to 480P or 480I resolution, you may/should also get an option in that device to choose between 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratio; choose 4:3 and you should get a proper picture. In DVD players, these is/was also an option to choose between "4:3 letterbox" and "4:3 pan-and-scan"; look for that as well. All of these will be in the source device, none of the converters will have those options.

What about one of these units ? I bought one off of E-bay for $15 ( looks like it was never used, & comes with a remote) and it has a ton of inputs and different formats. HDMI, USB, component , etc. I hooked it up to my predicta. Check out the video. Much better deal I think. IView- 3500 STB
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhYgD3HOBkI
Tony

How about this $262.99 unit:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Smartavi-V2V-HDAVS-HDMI-to-AV-Converter-Downscaler/201405972441?hash=item2ee4bb3fd9:g:pBkAAOSwu4BVyoA5
It better work for that price!