Can I hook this up to a tv?

cormie

Hi,
I have this laptop and I'm just wondering can I hook it up to a tv and if so, how? It's the 5021i model, with the 100GB hd if that makes a difference.

Any feedback appreciated:)

Karoma

Apparently... "1x S-video/ TV-out (NTSC/PAL) port " (Applies to the series..)

Identify the port. It'll looke xactly like this:
http://www.cortland.edu/flteach/mm-course/vid7.JPG (Or have more room for pins..)

+ get an S-Video cable -> provided your VCR or TV has S-Video in (Otherwise you can get an adaptor (example: S-Video -> SCART)

cormie

Cool, yep it has that. So once I get the cable, is it just a matter of hooking it up and the TV will automatically pick up the signal if connected with SCART or S-Video when I choose AV on the tv?

Thanks:)

Karoma

aye.
(it won't be the best quality btw..just to warn you:))

flogen

I'd say for playing movies etc. it will look fine, but in my experience general computer use (on the desktop etc.) it looks terrible, too hard to read.

Unless you have a HDTV

cormie

Well I'm just thinking for hooking up for playing a bit of Pro Evo on a bigger screen:D

Endurance Man

flogen wrote:

I'd say for playing movies etc. it will look fine, but in my experience general computer use (on the desktop etc.) it looks terrible, too hard to read.

Unless you have a HDTV

I use mine for watching movies and playing racing games, anything else looks like complete crap unless you have a very good tv . Colin Mcrae4 is great though, got the wheel setup say i can lay back on the couch .

cormie

why would movies and games look ok but general use not?

Karoma

smaller items / anything that requires finer detail will be 'fuzzy' - i.e. Text..

cormie

Ok, so would subtitles be hard to read in movies, or say, a scoreboard in pro evo, or just general small text in a game? Or does it go into a different display mode when you open a game/movie?:)

Endurance Man

cormie wrote:

Ok, so would subtitles be hard to read in movies, or say, a scoreboard in pro evo, or just general small text in a game? Or does it go into a different display mode when you open a game/movie?:)

It will also depend on the size of your screen, mine is kinda big. I think subtitiles would be ok, maybe the pro evo thing, never played so not sure how big it is .

cormie

well, just small in game text in general? Would this pose the same problem as say, text in notepad? or size 1 text on boards.ie? Also, if I have a widescreen laptop, which it is, would it hook up better to a widescreen tv rather than a normal one?

Endurance Man

cormie wrote:

well, just small in game text in general? Would this pose the same problem as say, text in notepad? or size 1 text on boards.ie? Also, if I have a widescreen laptop, which it is, would it hook up better to a widescreen tv rather than a normal one?

Anything as small as text in notpad is gonna be very hard to read, probably impossible if your tv isnt great. I would say the font would have to be at least size 15-16 to be clear. Dont think the widescreen would make any difference, its the graphics card that determines how good the picture will look and what kind of changes you can make to the display . Movies look fine, certain games look okay. I think Pro Evo would be fine while your playing but if the menus have small writing its gonna be hard to see .

cormie

okily;) Sure only one way to see I suppose! Thanks for the replies everyone!

Stephen

I find that movies which don't look great due to low bitrate compression or whatever tend to look much better on tv out. I guess the much lower resolution and antialiasing effect of the tv screen makes the compression artefacts much harder to see
When playing pro evo you will probably want to drop the resolution down to 800x600, though your graphics card may take care of this for you when it processes stuff for tv out.

gamer

it looks better if u bring pc resolution down to 640by 480,i think,,,the standard resolution of the tv screen unless u have a brand new HDTV,with dvi or hdmi inputs,,,ie u gotta match THE RESOLUTION of your tv exactly.

cormie

Cool thanks for the feedback. I used to always wonder why that when you hooked up your laptop to vcr/tv the mpg quality would look nowhere near as good as it would on the tv screen even though the pc monitor would be 17" and the tv 25", so I guess the reverse at 600x800 would make it look ok alright.

gamer

try 640 res first ,,800by 600 may work too, if u have a modern tv,dont know ,not sure, if u go higher u might damage tv tube.be CAREFUL.

Hagar

AFAIK that cable will give you picture only. If you want sound you will have to get a cable from your headphone/spaeker out socket on the laptop to a sound in socket on the tv.

gamer

NO,,SORRY stick to 640 resolution w.i just read that pal tv has a native resolution of 720by 576..if u go over that res u will get interlacing efffects.not a good idea,u can always turn up grahics details,and shadows to hi or max detail if u have a fast pc.

gamer

U MUST use exactly 640by 480 resolution,its good for fps or racing games or watching multimedia.not much use for rts games as theres too much smallicons and txt.films always look better on a small pc monitor in hi res ,anyway.

gamer

u can get 10euro speaker set for pc sound or else connect into tvs rca white ,red sound in av sockets usually at front of tv,,yellow rca is for video in.

cormie

In desktop/properties/display properties, it only slides to a min of 600x800. Will this damage a tv if I try it? Also, if the game automatically changes the resolution to 600x800, will I still have to do it in display properties? So can I not do it now that my min display is 6x800? Or does it depend on the tv?

gamer

if u try to use a tv for word or web browsing u,ll prbly danmage your eyesight ,ie txt display is low quality,u,d have to be 7inchs from tv to read it in lores,not good for your health ,just use it for games or dvds.

cormie

What's this about damaging the TV tube though? Would I do that on 800x 600 res? I'd probably just be using it for the image as we'd have music playing anyway! I don't want to mess up my friends tv though, or mine if I test it.

gamer

u needto go into safe mode hold down f8 key,see menu choose safe mode, it should come up in low res the go to display propertys ,pull slider to 640 by 480 resolution, i dont think u,ll do any damage by trying 800,x600,,but display may be interlaced ,,if screen looks crap than no point in using it,,,i,d need more tech specs on your tv.dvd resolution output from player is 720x756 ,or 720 x480 from a dvdplayer.what tv u got..ie philips 520a model no.look up max resolution on website of tv company or in ur tv manual. its at ur own RISK TO USE INTERLACED MODE ,U CUD RUN PC CABLE INTO av scart in your vcr that would be safer ..i think.then just press av on ur vcr remote 2 see ur pc,and av on ur tv remote.

Ciaran500

I use 1024*768 whenever I plug my PC into my ****ty black diamond TV, looks fine if you are only watching a video. Any higher than that and the screen scrolls when the mouse reaches the edge of the screen. I doubt the tuner in a TV will send a damaging signal to the tube.

DemonOfTheFall

Yeah don't worry about damaging your TV. I can normally choose either 640x480, 800x600 or 1024x768 when outputting to a TV. 800x600 looks best I think, 640x480 is just too crap, and 1024x768 is too flickery and small. Just plug it all in and mess around with it, nothing will break.

Endurance Man

Run mine at 800x600 and its a fairly big widescreen thing. 1024x768 will work for movies but when your on the desktop you really cant make anything out.

cormie

hooked it up tonight anyway, it's good for watching MPG's which were originally recorded from tv source I must say:) One thing though, I can't seem to get colour on it I remember another tv we had, one scart connection would emit colour, the other only black and white, however the tv I had it on tonight had only one scart connection. Any ideas?

gamer

u may have loose pin in the scart or take out scart push it in to socket slowly but firmly ,it may not be in in all the way.check both ends.u can get new scart cable in pound shop,3e.

cormie

Cool, I'll try again in a while and report back:) I have a few scart lying around but not sure if many can hook up to the SVid out on my laptop. What would be the story with the old tv that if you plugged the lead into one of the connections it would be black and white but the other would be colour? Could this maybe have the same issue? Would it be anything to do with my display settings? Ati Mobility Radeon X700 that is..

Karoma

It's more than likely faulty pin/not touching..
As for settings, the only one that I know of that would cause the output to be black and white would be the encoding (Switch NTSC <->PAL (I))

Balfa

or one of the pins/conductors not working. Because S-video sends luminance (brightness, or black and white) separately to chrominance (colour).

Are you using a cable with s-video on one end and scart on the other? If so, the cable's probably damamged (or one of the pins on the pc or tv!:eek:). If you're just using a stubby s-video to scart connector with a long scart-to-scart cable, then the scart cable is probably missing pins, they often are for cost cutting. Try another one of your SCAR cables. If your TV has s-video in, try just an s-video to s-video cable.

zilog_jones

Are you sure your TV can do s-video? You'd be getting no colour if it can't, usually. If it can, it's often the case that only one of the SCART sockets can take it, and you may have to change to a different AV mode.

Also regarding resolutions - the resolution you set in your graphics driver settings for TV-out is only changing the rendering resolution. your TV (assuming not HD) can only really handle two video modes - 480 horizontal lines @ 60Hz interlaced and 576 lines @ 50Hz interlaced - and your graphics card sets appropriately to whether you set the TV-out to PAL (576/50i) or NTSC (480/60i).

As PAL/NTSC video is totally analogue there's not really pixels as such, so there's not really a measurable vertical resolution as such. DVDs may be 720x480/576 but you won't get that kind of vertical resolution on a typical TV in reality. With PCs and TV-out it's probably just easiest to use 4:3 resolutions to keep things proportional - so 640x480 for NTSC and 768x576 for PAL (might need to make that one yourself though)