In-Room Video - Solstice Class Ships - Cruise Line Fans: Cruise Forum, Reviews and Chat From Real Cruisers

CAnderson · 09-16-2009, 10:40 PM

Someone (elsewhere) was good enough to shoot a pic of the flat panel sets from a standard room (not a suite) on Solstice. It appears that there are a wealth of options on the bottom of these sets: composite video on RCA + stereo on RCA, HDMI (and DVI?) and S-Video ports.

Has anyone attempted to select any of those additional inputs using the TV's own button set or the remote control, and have you had any success?

I like to review and clean up my cruise photos during a couple of the at-sea days on the way home on Trans-Atlantic cruises, and have one coming up in November. I know all of the tricks for the other Celebrity ships, but have no idea if I'll have any luck with this one.

CAnderson · 09-21-2009, 03:06 PM

Tap, tap, tap. Is this thing on?

Char · 09-21-2009, 05:48 PM

Hey Chris

I guess no one has had the experience to answer your question. Maybe someone, sometime soon will be able to help you out.

CAnderson · 09-21-2009, 06:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Char

Hey Chris

I guess no one has had the experience to answer your question. Maybe someone, sometime soon will be able to help you out.

Hope so. Need to decide what to take with me that will permit using the flat panel for photo edits, etc. It was really quite tricky on the Century in a Sky Suite after the refit. The TV end of the cable was buried behind the unit in the wall and completely unavailable. Had to patch together something on the VCR end using a bobby pin and some tape on the RCA plugs that was pretty ugly!

Since we'll be in a C1 cabin instead of a suite or the old favorite FV cabin, no VCR this time. I'm hoping that the easily accessible plugs on these new sets can be enabled with the remote or the TV. Sometimes ships/hotels/whatever supply some pretty hobbled remotes to keep people from fiddling with the picture quality, and in the process, you can lose other functions as well.

excitedofharpenden · 09-22-2009, 06:00 AM

Chris, my answer which isn't a very helpful one is "I'm not sure". I have been trying to find out the definitive to it as I'd like to use the TV to watch/listen to my iPod, but from what I have read there does not appear to be an AV button on the remote to swich it. I have also read that the outputs have been disconnected on the TV, but to confuse matters someone said they could get the big screen effect when they plugged in their portable DVD and someone else said they were able to charge their iPod using the USB port. That doesn't sound "disconnected" to me. I think it is just going to be a case of me bringing the cables and seeing what is what when I get to the cabin.

Phil

CAnderson · 09-22-2009, 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by excitedofharpenden

Chris, my answer which isn't a very helpful one is "I'm not sure"... I think it is just going to be a case of me bringing the cables and seeing what is what when I get to the cabin.

Phil

I'm taking the same approach. Your photo was better than the other one I saw.

I see a 1/8" for audio at the bottom, and as it uses the 'headphone' symbol, I'm reasonably certain that this is an audio out, not someplace you could stuff 1/8" stereo in. Whatever.

In your case, the safest bet is to bring a cable that splits a 1/8" stereo plug to your music player to two RCA plugs and just use the i-Pod's analog signal. One plug will go to the red RCA jack in your photo, and the other goes to the white. Those will be your stereo audio inputs. The yellow will be for composite video in.

Up above those, I see an S-Video connector. The composite video and audio mentioned above and the S-Video will all be shared as aux input #1 for the television. Setting the unit to aux in #1 will get you your audio if you can get enough control over the set to do it.

The next plug is pretty hard to read in the photo. It's aux in #2. I photo edited the thing, and found that the vertical letters on the left say "Wiselink". Aha! That's Samsung's name for the USB 2.0 port they put on their sets, and you can hook thumb drives and such to it to display photos and listen to music. You could also charge something from it (as you mentioned). They say you can update the flat panel set's firmware over that, too. It can handle JPG photos and MP3 music (leaves out your iPod, Phil).

The top one is aux in #3, and is clearly labeled as an HDMI port.

CAnderson · 09-22-2009, 05:13 PM

FYI: Turns out your photo was brilliant in that it helped determine the brand of set that they've been using to outfit these new ships.

Even if the remotes don't allow input switching, I checked a few of the recent user manuals on Samsung flat panel sets in general, and it appears that they all have a "Source" button on the TV that will cycle through each of the possible inputs. That can be used if there's no facility for it on the remote.

excitedofharpenden · 09-22-2009, 07:17 PM

Chris, that sounds a bit more hopeful

I've got a docking station for the iPod and may just get an S-Video cable as it will take one of those and then there is another permutation to link it up.

Phil

Edit: I had another thought. There must be a scart socket or two on the TV. I've got an adaptor that converts the three RCAs into a scart, so I'll bring that along. Between us we may have a solution!

CAnderson · 09-22-2009, 08:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by excitedofharpenden

Edit: I had another thought. There must be a scart socket or two on the TV. I've got an adaptor that converts the three RCAs into a scart, so I'll bring that along. Between us we may have a solution!

Doubtful that there's going to be a Euro type SCART connection on that flat panel. The only sets where you ever see SCART are PAL standard sets, and from what I can tell, the ones in the cabins are NTSC standard. For some reason (until HDMI) we seem to have preferred independent connections for everything over here. Don't ask me why.

If you want audio, I think you'll find it necessary to use the red and white RCA audio connections shown in your photo.

CAnderson · 09-22-2009, 08:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by excitedofharpenden

... and may just get an S-Video cable as it will take one of those and then there is another permutation to link it up.

Just realized what you typed. You have a video iPod now? S-Video only does video, no audio.