Commodore 64 set up to Smart TV

ChuckMountain

No I want him to make sure it works properly first via a direct connection.

Backspace

And how is he to do that? He cannot use the A/V ports.

ChuckMountain

Who said anything about AV ports.  Post 6 details how to plug it in.

The OP has an aerial lead that he can simply connect from the back of the C64 to the aerial input on the TV.  If he does this first directly with nothing else in the path it will prove whether the C64 works properly.  He has to do a tune on the analogue tuner to pick up the channel as there will not be any analogue signals tuned in.

It's not hard but you are adding unnecessary steps at this point.

The switch you have a picture may well interfere with the regular aerial signal for Freeview as it is not shielded.

Backspace

Post #6 detailed nothing. You didn't mention what port the TV's supposed to have. What does his TV have beside the coaxial and the two screws for the antenna? The cable that came with the C64 have RCA mono jacks on both ends.

Enlighten me.

ChuckMountain

Oh dear.  Let's go over it step by step shall we

So the OP has an aerial lead for connecting to the TV.  One that looks similar to this unless the OP has got it wrong

                                                                                                                                               

This plugs directly into the aerial port on his TV.  Now at the moment, he may well have an existing aerial hooked up to it, to watch FreeView.  So he will have to disconnect this for the time being.

He needs to tune the TV in the analogue tuner, with the C64 on, there will not be any other analogue signals present.  Once tuned in he will have to change his TV to the analogue TV to watch the C64.  If all is well then he can look at getting a combiner to feed both aerial (Freeview) and the C64 in.

He may have some other cables but he has not mentioned them at this point.

Backspace

Now I recognize the cable, it's the 8-pin connector to a mono RCA plug. My mistake.

His TV has a mono RCA port on it? It has to carry both sound and video.

OP, let's see your cable.

ChuckMountain

No, it's a single core and pin at each ( ground from shield) cable.

On the picture, the connector on the right is a phono style connector, which connects to the RF output on the C64.

The connector on the left is a Belling-Lee Aerial connection which connects to the aerial input on the TV.

Backspace

No I recognized the cable. It's a combo composite video and RGB video with sound. That way you can use a TV or a Commodore 1701 monitor with one port.

It's common to call the RCA jack the phono jack but it's wrong. The phono jack come in 1/8" and 1/4" and can be either stereo or mono. The 1/8" stereo phono jack is what you plug in your headphones to your smart phone. The 1/4" mono phono jack is used to plug a guitar into an amp.

Here, we are talking about the RCA mono jack or just RCA jack.

John7

No it’s not. It’s an RF cable from the C64’s modulator port to a tv aerial plug. This gives a composite rf output signal.

If his tv has an analogue composite port, it will need a different cable from the c64 to the tv. Details in the Wiki page here.....
A/V Jack - C64-Wiki

noiseboy72

John is 100% correct. The tuner output on the C-64 was the phono socket and the RGB output was on an 8 pin Din. You could also get Din to Scart for use with standard TVs. This gave much better image quality and sound but you may struggle to find one these days!!

I think UK and US terminology is getting a little mixed up here. We call those connectors phono plugs and the headphone connectors Jacks. RCA normally referred to the similar to phono plug size RF connector used for car radio antennae