Expensive

Apple cables are expensive. We've been setting up our A/V here at the new Chez TANBI and the tablets are a new dimension. We have fairly new TVs in two rooms, one's that will take VGA directly or HDMI input, and another older TV that does S, Composite, or Component video. What with Netflix and HBOGO on the tablets it seemed like a good idea to get the cables needed to make things talk to each other.

We already had a VGA adaptor cable. We'd been using it on the bedroom tv in the old place. I wasn't 100% happy with that though, so for the new instance I got an HDMI adapter. Good thing I already had some HDMI cables around (and that I'd spent considerable time sorting cables over the weekend). Wouldn't want to have to buy a cable on top of the near $40 for the adapter. It's a nice compact thing though and does have a USB split off of it so that you can plug in the power while you're using it. That's something I was thinking would be a good idea with the VGA adapter I already had (which doesn't have that capability).

For the old set I got a composite cable/adapter. It was also on near $40. I'm telling myself that there's some electronics in the thing and not just pin switching. Otherwise the Apple folks have been taking lessons from the Monster Cable folk. This cable also has the power split, although if I leave it set up like I think I will I might wind up needing another wall wart for it.

Here's the kicker though. Both arrangements work swell. I even managed to get one of the sets to resize the thing to the screen in a way I hadn't been able to before (in the original setup the picture was sort of narrow and off center and I could never find the right control). The rub? HBOGO disables the external viewing option. So if you want to watch that library you have to do it on the screen on the tablet.

I think this is a little odd as you can use an external monitor for a laptop when doing HBOGO from the web. Its just the apps on the mobile device that has the restriction. We surmise it's because they don't want you taking your 3G mobile device to someone else's home, where there is no HBO, and watching their content on a real screen.

But then there is 3G internet for laptops too, so that's not a great reason.

So a little bit this renders the cable on the old TV moot because we had the capability to stream Netflix through the Wii already. The interface is a little better on the tablet, so we get that, and there's anything else we might want to get on a big screen: photo slideshows and the like.

But no HBOGO.

Makes an already expensive cable seem even more expensive.