How do I connect Raspberry Pi to my TV?

Question

I have an old TV set and it does not have HDMI. I wanted to know how to connect my RPi to it and which cables I should buy. Problem is I don't know what are these inputs called as, so I couldn't Google.

The front panel of TV has 3 inputs, Yellow-White-Red.

The back has some ports for input, I don't know what it is called,

It also 5 cable input at back, mentioned 'Cr', 'Cb' and 'Y' on it. Colors are White-Red-Red(Cr)-Blue(Cb)-Green(Y). Pic is

So,

• Can I connect RPi to my TV directly? Or do I need any convertor?
• Which cables I should buy?

Answer 1

Following answer from reddit was helpful:

The yellow-white-red ports are for composite video (yellow) and stereo audio (red and white). These plugs typically use RCA connectors.

The Pi has an RCA composite video out, and a 3.5mm audio out jack (the same thing you'd find on a smartphone, iPod etc, i.e. a "headphone jack")

So, to connect the Pi to your TV, you need:

• An RCA male to RCA male composite video cable
• A 3.5mm to RCA audio splitter cable

Those are just two examples that popped up at the top of an Amazon search. You can probably find cheaper ones, get them at Best Buy, etc.

Your second picture is of an S-video port, which won't work with the Pi.

Your third picture is of component video ports. It has separate cables (red, green, and blue) for each video component (as opposed to a "composite" cable, which crams them all into one cable). Then it also has white and red ports for audio. That won't work with the Pi either, since the Pi only has composite out.

Answer 2

Yes, you can direct connect! The first set of inputs you mention, the "Yellow-White-Red" is called composite or RCA video. The Raspberry Pi supports this, it's the matching little Yellow RCA connector on the Pi, next to the headphone jack (see diagram). Connect this with an RCA cable to the matching Yellow connector on the TV and you're set. The White and Red jacks are left and right channel audio respectively. You need a 1/8" stereo to RCA, or phono when it's audio, cable if you want audio through the TV as well. On the Pi you'll also have to enable audio out over the 1/8" jack by editing the config.txt file, by setting hdmi_drive=1. When Linux boots you'll also need to run amixer cset numid=3 1.

That's one option. Without knowing more about your TV, what I'm about to write about is a bit speculative. Generally the Y/Cb/Cr is a higher quality video input called component video. It's analogous to VGA like computer monitors originally used. It's what the original fat Xbox 360s used for connecting, for example. The Raspberry Pi doesn't support this, but the Pi does do HDMI, and there are lots of conversion boxes to go from HDMI to Component video. This is a bit sketchier though, so you're probably best off using the composite video until you get used to things and want to experiment.