Connecting laptop to TV

[tim]

Is there a way to connect my laptop to my TV so that I can effectively use the TV screen as a monitor, particularly for showing photos that are stored on the hard drive?

The TV has three scarts (but they are round the back) and it also has a side port for connecting video camera - although I've never done that.

Not sure what should connect to what and with what type of cable.

Cheers

Tim

 

[Steve Maskery]

Tim
The new tellies that are on the market now have an HDMI input. No idea what it means except that it is the "other" output from your video card (it's white and rectangular - two sets of pins). With an HDMI cable you can connect that to the telly.

I don't know of a way of doing it with a normal VGA cable.

How's the library coming along?

 

[Colin C]

Hi Tim

Try Here
I hope it help as I dont have one and have not tried it myself

 

[mr]

Laptops will usually have a composite out socket which is generally a phono or s- video connector, depending. The cable you need will be this on one end and scart on t'other. (this suggests that you will probably also have audio cables to plug in as well if you want.

Thats all there is to it provided your laptop has composite out. Most do. You may need to toggle the external output on. which is usually a function F key combination press.
Cheers Mike

 

[NeilO]

Im with Mike, if your Lappy supports TV out your pretty much sorted ( and most do nowadays) just plug in the composite cables ( RCA plugs, yellow, white and red ...video (ylw) audio L & R (wht and red) and if your lucky your TV will support these connections too, or make use of a scart connector to the TV..
and enable TV out mode on your lappy, usually F key function..
HTH

 

[tombo]

tim,

forget the laptop, i have an xbox under my telly (the old one), but it runs a free piece of software called xbox media center (XBMC).

because the xbox is on my home network all i have to do is share a folder on my pc or laptop and i can browse the photos directly. This is a much better solution cause a pc is rubbish in the living room it takes ages to boot up and you need to drive it with a keyboard and mouse. The xbox is ready to go in 15 seconds and has a remote control.

In addition to digi photos it plays music and movies, i have now ripped all my cds and dvd's to my pc. It has transformed my living room no more CD's or DVD's needed they are all in the loft gathering dust

Oh and it still plays games...

here are some screenshots the album covers and movie posters are automatically downloaded from the internet!

movie view

music view

 

[RogerS]

Oasis? Oasis? Have to be one of the least talented bands around..with the epitome of a spoilt brat as one of its' members who always seems to be having a childish hissy fit :twisted:

back to the thread

Tim, if you ever need anything 'special' to do with video, TV and computers such as leads or converter boxes then Keene are the boys.

 

[tombo]

roger,

the screen shot was just to show what browsing a music folder looks like, the bottom shows that folder contains 300 albums.

by the way you couldn't be more wrong about oasis... good thing i didn't take a snap of the folder containing Eminem or NWA :wink:

 

[mailee]

Who? are they anything like ELO?

 

[Colin C]

Who? are they anything like ELO?

Thanks goodness No :roll: :wink: but I also dont like oasis :twisted:

 

[tim]

Right. Thanks for all your help and advice.

I have now got the appropriate S-video cable and all seems hunky dory IF you use the TV as an extended part of the desktop ie slide the appropriate widow onto the TV screen (took me ages to work this out). This would be fine except that if you opt for slideshow etc it displays on the laptop monitor. For some reason I don't seem to be able to toggle between screens even using the Function and F8 key as marked. If I try to select the TV as the primary monitor (in the display properties box) then the TV screen ends up going blank.

Any thoughts?

Cheers

Tim

 

[mr]

In display properties try disabling the second screen and then using function f8 to toggle between laptop screen & tv screen.
Mike

 

[tim]

In display properties try disabling the second screen and then using function f8 to toggle between laptop screen & tv screen.
Mike

I've tried that and it doesn't seem to do anything - it doesn't even blank the laptop screen which is rather odd. Maybe it needs to have a VGA cable connected ie monitor to monitor - but what do I know :-k

Cheers

Tim

 

[mr]

It doesnt need a vga cable in, do you have particular settings in the display properties to enable the composite video output perhaps?

 

[tim]

It doesnt need a vga cable in, do you have particular settings in the display properties to enable the composite video output perhaps?

I don't know

 

[nickson71]

I've resently connected my other halfs laptop to my TV and it worked fine ...... All I used was the monitor cable that came with the laptop ... saying that my TV is quite new


as an aside ....... I always have a chuckle when people start commenting on music ........ There's no accounting for personal taste ...... I know most of you would hate most of the music I listen to ........ Opeth, machine head, Metallica, a perfect circle, etc