TV adapters: HDMI, Scart, USB – this is how you adapt your connections

TELEVISION & SMART TVS

March 30, 2023 at 3:42 p.m

TV adapters are the solution if your Smart TV does not have the right connection. We explain what you need to convert HDMI, Scart and USB signals.

Buying a new television is a joyous occasion for many, as every year Smart TVs offer more and more exciting features and possibilities. However, technological progress also has its price and it becomes apparent when you try to connect old devices to new televisions.

Over time, TV manufacturers have repeatedly rationalized outdated connection types such as Scart, which were still important at the time to connect game consoles or DVD players, for example. Every year, more and more multimedia devices accumulate in many households that can no longer be connected to the new television. Is there a solution for this?

Where are they used?

Yes, namely the so-called television adapters. How it works is simple. An adapter converts one connector type to another. With the right adapter, you can connect old devices with a Scart cable to an HDMI input on your modern Smart TV.

But you can not only solve compatibility problems between old and new devices. Sometimes a television simply has too few connection sockets or is fundamentally not designed for a specific signal type. You can also remedy this with the right adapter.

To put it simply, a television adapter will help you wherever the cable does not fit into the socket. Nowadays there is a plethora of different types of adapters that you can use to convert almost any signal. It becomes difficult if you want to convert a newer type of connection to a much older standard (e.g. HDMI to Scart). But there are usually suitable solutions for this as well.

types of adapters

Before we inform you in detail about the different types of TV adapters and how to use them, we want to give you a brief overview of the most common adapters in the following table.

Of course, this is only a roughly outlined selection of the various adapters that are available on the market. In addition, you can of course split the individual adapter types even further. However, we want to keep it as simple as possible so that our less tech-savvy readers can also benefit from this guide.

Explanation of individual adapter types

The adapter types can also be roughly distinguished by the signals they convert. HDMI adapters are used to convert image signals, headphone adapters to convert audio signals and WLAN adapters to convert WLAN signals. However, choosing the right adapter is not always as easy as this explanation might suggest.

We’ll tell you where which adapter should be used, what distinguishes the individual adapters and what prices you can expect from the retailers. We orientate ourselves primarily on the online price comparison portal Geizhals.

HDMI-Adapter

Most of the different adapters are probably for the HDMI format. No wonder, after all, HDMI has now become the transmission standard for smart TVs. Both audio and video signals are transmitted via HDMI. Most current devices connect to the TV via HDMI, including current game consoles, DVD players and computers.

With mini-HDMI and micro-HDMI, there are two other sub-types of the HDMI standard, but they are used comparatively rarely. Accordingly, most adapters are designed for standard HDMI. The most common adapters are probably the ones you use to convert a Scart signal, a VGA signal or a DisplayPort signal into an HDMI signal.

Examples of HDMI adapters

Note that with some adapters only the image but not the audio signal is converted. This applies, for example, to the conversion from DVI to HDMI. Most adapters are ready to use as soon as you have inserted them between the cable and the connection socket. The adapters are priced between 5 and 50 dollars, with more expensive devices usually guaranteeing a more stable signal.

A more practical, but also more expensive alternative are HDMI multi-converters, with which you can convert several signal types into one HDMI signal, including USB, VGA and Displayport.

WLAN-Adapter

Many TV functions, especially Smart TVs, require an internet connection. This includes media libraries, streaming services or apps. It gets annoying if your TV only has a wired Internet connection (LAN) and the cable length is not long enough, for example.

You can avoid this problem with a WLAN TV adapter. Depending on the model, you either plug this into a free USB port on your television and/or connect it to the Ethernet connection. The WLAN TV adapter then sets up a wireless Internet connection for your television.

This usually works with all internet-enabled televisions. You can find out whether your TV is internet-enabled by looking at the instructions. Alternatively, you can ask the retailer where you bought the device.

WiFi TV adapters are perfectly adequate if you already own a Smart TV and they are significantly cheaper than the methods listed below. Good WLAN adapters from well-known manufacturers such as Fritz! You can get it in electronics stores for around 15 to 30 dollars.

Alternatively, you can connect your TV to the Internet in other ways. These are useful if you want to turn a normal TV into a smart TV. All your TV needs is a free HDMI port into which you plug the TV stick.

An example of such an Internet TV stick is the Fire TV Stick. In the linked article, we explain how to wirelessly connect your cell phone to the television with the Fire TV Stick.

A third option is provided by the Miracast software, which, like Google Chromecast, also comes in the form of a stick, but also requires the installation of software and a laptop, smartphone or tablet. We will explain how to set up Miracast in a separate article.

On the next page we will inform you about other types of adapters, including the Scart adapters that are so essential for connecting old devices.