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Icewalker
2008-11-12, 01:58 AM
I'm looking for a cable that will connect my laptop to my TV. Basically so that I can use the TV as a monitor, watch a movie on it, etc.

What I assume I would be after is a cable with USB on one side, and component cables to go into the TV on the other. But I really don't know, and haven't had any luck finding one.

Rawhide
2008-11-12, 02:03 AM
Unless your laptop has a TV outlet (S-Video, HDMI, Composite, DVD Component) or your TV has a monitor input (D-SUB/VGA, DVI-D), you're out of luck as far as cheap cables go.

You will need to get a converter box or an external video card, and they can be very expensive (hundreds of dollars last I checked).

Klose_the_Sith
2008-11-12, 02:11 AM
I'm actually fairly sure it can be done, I remember a cable which did exactly this.

That said, audio was rubbish and I wouldn't recommend it.

FdL
2008-11-12, 05:22 AM
Okay, I recently got a converter box for this precisely.

I made a lot of research before, and contrary to what Rawhide says, supposedly the video chipset on most laptops is wired in a way that the regular alternative VGA output can be used to output to a TV. Mine didn't (I have an Eee PC sublaptop).

This means that if your laptop's VGA output is wired the right way, you can just use a simple VGA to RCA (or whatever) cable. But you need to verify in the manual or wherever that the chipset supports TV output natively.

What I did was to buy a pretty inexpensive converter, of the K-World brand, called "PC to TV". It's a little box that connects to VGA out and is powered by the computer's USB, and has an RCA video out. My model is the cheapest and costed around 70 dollars (you might get it cheaper, I live in Argentina).

This did the trick for me, I can watch videos and stuff on the TV from the laptop. I actually use it as a secondary screen projecting the grid maps form my D&D games. We use a TV that's there and I bring my laptop which I already used to manage stuff.

Do know that, at least in the one I have which supports resolutions only up to 1024x768 the image is not really clear, being a limitation of TVs and probably for being a cheap piece of hardware. So you can't really read text with a normal size in 800x600. Your experience might vary, but you should take this in mind, because a TV will never have the same definition as the worst of monitors. So this would rule out using it for internet and stuff I guess.

Rawhide
2008-11-12, 02:04 PM
I made a lot of research before, and contrary to what Rawhide says, supposedly the video chipset on most laptops is wired in a way that the regular alternative VGA output can be used to output to a TV. Mine didn't (I have an Eee PC sublaptop).

Actually, that would come under the definition of "a TV outlet".