iPad and HDMI

Apple's iPad dock to VGA converter

Sewell's VGA to HDMI converter

First of all, I think the iPad is amazing. When I bought one (the day it came out), I thought it was going to be a toy - I still sort of think of it as a toy, but it can be so much more. It's fast - I find myself not wanting to open my laptop because I am becoming accustomed to never having to wait for anything to open. The experience is hard to describe - if you don't currently have an iPad I highly recommend you head to your local Apple store and try one out.

That being said, for the life of me I can't figure out why they chose not to include a digital video-out option. First of all, there is no video output on the device out of the box. OK, I can live with that - they want to sell you their special iPad video connector.

But then, and this is the weird part, the only video connector Apple sells is an iPad to VGA connector. In other words, it will easily connect to a projector or monitor, but there is a pretty good chance it won't connect to your TV. A device that you store all of your TV shows and movies on won't connect to your TV?!

Business focus

My only guess is that Apple is anticipating business people wanting to use the iPad for presentations - Keynote is a great Powerpoint alternative and most business people will probably be projecting their iPad displays onto a monitor or projector.

However, I can't help but feel that Apple didn't think of me sitting in a hotel room 9,000 miles away desperately craving some American television programming. The answer? A VGA to HDMI adapter designed to work with Apple's iPad to VGA converter.

This converter connects to the VGA port that the Apple connector offers and gives you a true HDMI port. In fact, it also comes with an audio cable that connects your iPad's headphone jack to the adapter so the single HDMI cable coming out of it carries both audio and video.

This solution gives you HD content (albeit 720p, not 1080p - but that's OK because your iPad's movies probably aren't 1080p either) and is relatively lightweight, allowing you to take it on long trips.

This is also convenient for the home theater enthusiast with enough foresight to prewire his/her walls with HDMI cables (but without the foresight to think about installing VGA and stereo cables as well).

Price

The only real downside to this solution is the price - Apple's adapter will set you back $29 and Sewell's VGA to HDMI converter will run another $79 or so (these aren't cheap because it has an active converter taking the analog signal and converting it to digital on-the-fly). The upside is that the converter has a built-in scaler so you won't have to worry about weird-looking images or anything like that (or worse yet, a completely blank signal because your TV doesn't support the output resolution).

The audio and video are flawlessly in-sync with the built-in audio/video synchronization timer.

So there it is - if you really want to connect your iPad to an HDTV with HDMI, you have an option.