Solving Problems Quickly

Do you ever have a problem to solve and immediately come up with a solution?  As you start to implement the solution, you start to realize that it is not as simple as you originally thought.  Your ego gets in the way and guilts you to continue even though you start to realize that it may not work at all or is just too complicated.

I'll give you a good example that happened to me last night.  I recently got the newer model Apple TV.  I planned to hook up my older model Apple TV in the basement in our "work-out room".  This room has an older TV that does not have a HDMI connection.  It instead has a DVI connection, which in simple terms means only the video gets transmitted to the TV (you need a special cable that goes from HDMI on the output of the Apple TV to DVI on the input of the TV).  I needed to figure out how to transmit the audio as well (which usually gets transmitted through the HDMI cable).  I hope I haven't bored you with these details but these are somewhat important to understand this example.

Here is a listing of my immediate solutions without giving them much thought:

Failed Attempt 1:  I have a small TV that has HDMI connections, so my first solution was to go HDMI from the Apple TV to the HDMI on the small TV.  My plan was to connect the small TV to my larger TV.  From the small TV, I connected an RCA cable from the output (yellow for video, white and red for audio) to the input of the larger TV.  I could not get the video to work on the larger TV.  I tried many things to get it to work but only the audio would work.  What a crazy idea trying to use a TV to run a TV.

Failed Attempt 2:  I have an older Sling box that I was no longer using.  I could plug the HDMI from the Apple TV to the HDMI on the Sling box.  From there, I would use the component output (green, blue, red) to plug into the larger TV.  I went through the setup with the Sling box, which kept crashing on me, but could not get the picture to work.  I think the issue is that Apple TV has some copyright protection that prevents you from going HDMI to another type of video cable.

Failed Attempt 3:   I went from my Apple TV HDMI output using my cable that goes to DVI.  The picture on the TV worked but no sound (which was not a surprise, but I was desperate).  The Apple TV also has an optic audio output.  I looked on the Internet for a converter device that went from HDMI input to DVI & RCA output.  No such device existed that I could find.  You will see later on in the story that I almost had the right idea, but I continued to jump to conclusions.

Failed Attempt 4:  I looked online to see what it would cost to buy a modern TV to replace the old TV.  The cost for a TV around 60" was in the ballpark of $1,000, which seems crazy when I have a TV already.

Failed Attempt 5:  I thought that maybe I could connect a bluetooth speaker to the Apple TV and then the sound could be played through it.  It appears that Apple TV only connects via bluetooth to things like keyboards.

I looked up many other options on the Internet (many more failed attempts) and spent the better part of 3 hours trying to get all these ideas to work.  I even dreamed about it last night.

This morning, while I was not thinking about it, I realized that maybe I could buy a converter that takes an optic input and outputs RCA.  I could keep my DVI connection and use the converter for the audio.  I looked up online and quickly found such a device for about $15.   I ordered it and hopefully it works.

As you can see I spent a great deal of time and energy trying a lot of bandaid type solutions with little to show.  If someone was with me, they would think I was crazy.  If I had been successful with any of the attempts, it would of been mostly by luck.

Don't be so closed minded when you are trying to solve a problem.  Don't let your pride get in the way of being open to other solutions.  Don't think that the first idea that pops in your head is the best one.  I have seen at work this happen many times where things are implemented because someone came up with the solution fast.  Lots of time and money gets spent following the wrong path that eventually gets scrapped.

I almost bought a $1,000 TV instead of just spending $15!