Just arrived, (does it work on TV?)

[econerd]

So my pi just arrived, rather disappointed that there's no power cable or TV cable. I thought I had a micro USB cable but i cant find any, of all the ones ive got, which is a lot, there isn't one in the bunch.

Anyway basically ive been using PCs for years but never Linux or anything like this before. I was under the impression when I bought it that you could run it on a normal TV. To me a normal TV is not a fancy expensive HDMI plasma/lcd screen type affair, however I can only find reference to an HDMI cable and nothing about "normal TVs" like a 10+ year old analogue TV. The reason for buying the pi was because the TV we have doesn't support a computer as its to old and I can not afford to buy a fancy new HDMI tv.
Is there any way of connecting my new pi to my TV or is it useless until I can afford a new HDMI TV?
Thanks

[bursar]

You can use the yellow RCA jack to connect up a composite cable to your TV (providing it has composite in ofcourse!). You should also be able to get a composite to SCART adapter if you have a spare SCART socket. Not sure what this will do for image quality though...

[mahjongg]

yes, you can connect it to an normal analog TV, but not to any antenna input, as the PI lacks the TV transmitter. Rather it outputs composite video, on the Yellow RCA (Tulip) type of plug. This you can input to the "video input" of your TV, similar to a DVD player or game console.
You dont have to configure anything to get composite video output. The PI monitors if you have anything connected to the HDMI port, and automatically creates an analog TV picture if there isn't anything connected to the HDMI port.

If the picture is black and white you will probably have a PAL (european) TV, the PI however default to NTSC (american), you will probably get a picture on a PAL TV with NTSC, but not in color.
To switch to PAL, with the latest distro's you can get a boot option to edit the config file (config.txt), in older versions you have to edit the config.txt file on the SD-card by hand. Details are in the Wiki.

P.S. yellow RCA plug or SCART give the same picture quality.

[econerd]

thanks, by composite do u mean the RGB connectors that older things used like the old ps1? if so this would only be picture and no sound. would a headphone to headphone or headphone to RGB cable work for the sound? as i think i might have one here somewhere. cant do anything without a micro usb though, they cant cost that much, why cant they send it with one? gonna have to fork out for a SD card too as I thought it came with one pre loaded.

ETA: yeah im in UK so have a PAL TV. or at least it should be, its Sony. gonna have fun trying to work that out when i finally get the thing going. most likely wont be for several days as will have to wait for Amazons postage.

[redhawk]

The PI doesn't come with any power supply, cables or memory cards just the board unless you pay extra via RS / Farnell this is a) to keep the cost down and b) to cater for those who already own the require items which can be easily purchased from Amazon or eBay anyway.
As for old TVs the PI does support composte / cvbs video output this is the larger connector that sits next to the headphone jack.
Just be aware that the PI defaults to NTSC mode not PAL, to enable PAL a file in the root of the memory card (visible from Windows) config.txt must contain the following lines: sdtv_mode=2

Richard S.

[mahjongg]

By composite I mean the yellow connector, almost all TV's of the last few decades have, either than and/or a SCART input.
The yellow input plug on the TV is often accompanied with two others, a white and a red one, for stereo audio in. These can be connected, via a suitable cable, to the 3.5mm (headset) jack plug, and yes, this is the audio output (if you do not use HDMI). Its possible to use a headset, but its not really designed for that, and the audio signal may be low, and distorted if using too insensitive ones. The output is rather designed for the audio input of a TV or stereo set, or a set of amplified speakerboxes, which comes with a 3.5mm jackplug.

SD-cards do not come with the PI, most people prefer to create them themselves, so the have the latest ones (The latest distro's, many have more than one card and distro). But its possible to buy pre-burned cards, from RS or farnell. and other sources, which is good for a fist try. To get other versions, you need either a PC with a SD-card reader, or a SD card reader for your PI, at the moment its not really easy to burn a new card with the cardreader built into the PI, but that may change. Note that a lot of stuff is being developed for the PI.

[bredman]

For detailed information, please see this page in the wiki
http://elinux.org/RPi_Hardware_Basic_Setup

You will be most interested in the chapters "Display" and "Cables".

[econerd]

ive just found a micro usb cable on amazon for 96p with free postage, im sure wholesale it would be half that. just gotta wait for it to arrive now

[toxibunny]

You can get micro usb cables from the pound shop, labelled as 'blackberry charger cable' or something like that...

[FX4]

Or an old cell phone charger works great. I'm using an old Droid 1 charger and it works great. Just make sure it can support 700ma.