Laptop - Tv question

git_ireland

Hi Guys,

Need a bit of help. I would like to connect my laptop to my HDTV but I dont know what cable I need. Any help would be appreciated.

Laptop is hereand TV is here

Thanks

krattapopov

Em VGA cable would work, just like hooking up another monitor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VGA_connector

http://www.elara.ie/products/cables.asp?srch=vga&anyallexact=all&manu=

Sound wouldn't go through it though, so you would have to plug speakers into your laptop.

I'm not sure what other cable options would be open to you if you wanted to get picture and sound hooked to the TV, maybe HDMI if your laptop has a port?

git_ireland

Thanks for the info. The speakers are built into the tv. Any other ideas?

krattapopov

various options open to you

Laptop to TV with S-Video Cable

This simple and inexpensive cable connects your laptop to your TV and works easily. Most sets are equipped with s-video jacks. The picture resolution and audio won’t be as high quality as it is on your computer but this is convenient and easy way to get picture and sound.

VGA Cable

A VGA cable will also allow you to connect your TV to laptop but only if your TV is HDTV. This type of TV is now very popular and VGA cables are quite inexpensive and the resulting quality is much higher than with the S-Video cabling. Most experts will suggest VGA for the best picture possible. You may need to adjust the aspect ratio to get the best picture.

DVI Cable

A DVI cabling option works with digital signals, HDTV’s and newer laptop models.

Scan Converter Box

A scan converter box can be a good option for watching on TV what you’d normally watch on a PC. It will alter the signal so that your laptop can communicate with your television.

PC to TV Card

PC to TV cards can help you easily transmit data from the laptop to the TV with a bit of fussing with resolution. Some models don’t require any adjustments to aspect ratio.

Some people have differing opinions on the best options but the bottom line is that you don’t have to suffer watching movies or shows on your laptop because there are quite a few options for using your television as a monitor.

Taken from: Here

Another boards thread on the matter Here

zilog_jones

Your laptop doesn't have DVI or HDMI outputs so your only real option would be VGA (your laptop doesn't have TV outputs but they look shíte anyway). But that link to your TV specs doesn't list it as having a VGA input, however they are specs to the US model apparently - can you confirm that there is no VGA input on your TV? That is quite unusual for an HDTV to not have such an input.

git_ireland

zilog_jones wrote: »

Your laptop doesn't have DVI or HDMI outputs so your only real option would be VGA (your laptop doesn't have TV outputs but they look shíte anyway). But that link to your TV specs doesn't list it as having a VGA input, however they are specs to the US model apparently - can you confirm that there is no VGA input on your TV? That is quite unusual for an HDTV to not have such an input.

Dosent seem to be.

Can I get a VGA - HDMI cable and use that?
Also for the sound could i use this

BTW thanks for the help

gamer

YOU can get a vga to hdmi cable, or a vga to hdmi converter ,plugs into hdmi tv cable.SEARCH www.ebay.ie 4 vga hdmi cable .I got a samsung HDTV ,it has no vga, just hdmi.be sure tv output,grahics card ,refresh rate is set 2 60mhz, see www.svideo.com ,lots of info re ,tv settings ,pc to tv etc,i got vga to hdmi convertor ,7euro, it works ok for me, THAT 3.5MM cable above is what you need 4 sound output.

zilog_jones

VGA to HDMI cables only work with very specific (i.e. weird) products. Your laptop only outputs analogue RGB video though its VGA output (HDMI is digital), so it won't work. You'll need a converter box that accepts analogue VGA inputs and converts to either component YPbPr (the red, green and blue coloured phono sockets on your TV) or HDMI. VGA to component is probably the cheaper option as it's a simpler thing to do (it's still analogue). Problem is that most the easily available converters do it the wrong way round for you - component to VGA.

gamer

I used a vga to hdmi convertor,cost 7euro,4 connecting my laptop to my hdtv,cos my tv has no vga.hdmi cable cost me 30euro.or just buy a vgato hdmi cable on ebay.ie,20euro approx.convertor size is 1inchx1inch in size approx.it worked fine on 1024x768,or 720x576 resolution,on other resolutions,picture was fuzzy, set refresh rate 2 ,60mhz,otherwise you can damage the tv tube.
THE picture was the same as a vga monitor,at the resolutions , noted above,perfect ,no distortion ,or jaggie pixels.
download powerstrip free program . IT helps to set up output for tv,from the pc graphics card.
set TV out to paL b europe.If it doesnt worK shop wiLL refund you,hold onto the receipt.If you have loadsa money ,you can buy a vga to component convertor, or a vga to scart cable,the max resolution of av scart input,is sdtv res=720px576. Ebay.ie is aways cheapest,for convertor,or vga to scart cables.FROM vga to tv theres ony 3 resolutions that will give a clear picture cos vga is analog,going into a hdmi connector.

zilog_jones

gamer wrote: »

set refresh rate 2 ,60mhz,otherwise you can damage the tv tube.

Not true. For starters I think you mean Hz not MHz, most TVs have protection circuits so will switch off or inform you of out of range frequencies, and most HDTVs can accept a large enough range of frequencies - however 50 or 60Hz will usually give the best results with LCD and plasma displays (which have no "tubes" btw).

set 2 pa b europe

If you mean PAL B, that is irrelevant for VGA or HDMI output.

the ax resoution of av scart input,is sdtv res=720px576

A common misconception. SCART is only capable of analogue SDTV resolutions, but there are no discrete pixels involved in analogue TV, i.e. you can't say it's 720x576 or whatever. At 50Hz there are 576 visible horizontal lines, and at 60Hz there are 486 visible lines, but the picture quality of these lines is not definite and varies greatly depending on the quality of whatever's making the signal and the TV set. In most cases it's probably worse than the digital equivalent of 720x576, and if you're using s-video or composite outputs the colour resolution will be significantly worse (half or less of the luminance resolution).

gamer

Thats the standard res for sdtv ,from vcrs,dvd players thru scart av in connector so you should get a clear picture on that setting,why set res for 720 x400 on a scart connection .SCART USES 720x576 sdtv res because its designed for sdtv signal coming in ,ie its not capable of accepting HD SIGNAL.using that res i get a perfect picture on dvds played from my laptop,if i want higher res i,ll use vga in or hdmi in.google sdtv pa resolution for more info on this point.if using sdtv connector its better to use standard sdtv resoution ,if you want a high quality picture.THERES no point in buying a blue ray hd player connecting it thru scart and then expecting to watch dvds in hd format to av in scart,ie scart is not a hd connnector.

zilog_jones

gamer wrote: »

Thats the standard res for sdtv ,from vcrs,dvd players thru scart av in connector so you should get a clear picture on that setting,why set res for 720 x400 on a scart connection .SCART USES 720x576 sdtv res because its designed for sdtv signal coming in

The point I was trying to make is it's not 720x576, as there are not 720 discrete pixels for every horizontal line. It is 576 lines of indescrete signals. Your digital video from your DVD or other digital TV source may be 720x576 but once it's turned into analogue RGB video it's 576 lines of debatable resolution.

If you made a DVD made out of black and white vertical lines of 1 pixel each and sent that over RGB SCART you would not see the lines clearly - it would be a blurry mess or just solid grey. It may be able to reproduce 400-500 vertical lines but not 720. If it's a VHS tape it's more likely to be about 250 vertical lines. This is how analogue TV horizontal resolution is measured, not by pixels, because there are none.

VGA outputs use double the horizontal frequency compared to analogue SDTV, so you are much more likely to get a proper reproduction of those horizontal pixels.

using that res i get a perfect picture on dvds played from my laptop,if i want higher res i,ll use vga in or hdmi in.

You'll probably get a better picture using your TV's native resolution over HDMI or VGA, assuming it is an HDTV. PCs are generally not good at any sort of decent SDTV output (unless you do funny things with your VGA output or have expensive broadcast grade equipment), especially if you're using the composite/s-video "TV Out". Your PC is probably better at upscaling DVDs to HD resolutions than your TV, especially if you're using VLC, ffdshow, mplayer etc. for upscaling (and deinterlacing when required).

gamer

USING hdmi,or vga in lets you use higher resoution ,ie 1024x768 .See your tv manual for recommended resoutions in pc to tv mode.to finish my point it woud be dangerous to the tv to use a higher res than 720p if you are using a vga to scart input,vga and scart in are both analog signals .I only mention vga2scart cable cos its cheaper than a full scale vga to hd convertor box. YOU may want 2 set text fonts to large when using the pc on the tv.
I USED svideo to pc cable on a tv and it gave a perfect picture on a tv ,sdtv ,res set at 720x576.I MEAN it was fine for watching dvds, or video podcasts rev3 etc.

zilog_jones

gamer wrote: »

to finish my point it woud be dangerous to the tv to use a higher res than 720p if you are using a vga to scart input,vga and scart in are both analog signals

I'm sorry, do you have any idea what I've been trying to say, or have any clue what you're talking about? 720p, 1080i, 1080p are HD. 576i or 480i are SD. Why are you talking about 720p now? SCART or any type of SDTV connectors are not normally designed for 720p (some TVs do weird things like accept YPbPr over SCART but let's not go there as it's not standard). Yes, VGA is analogue too, but it uses double the horizontal frequencies of SDTV signals at the same resolution while also allowing for a wide variety of resolutions (not just 480i/576i).

I USED svideo to pc cable on a tv and it gave a perfect picture on a tv ,sdtv ,res set at 720x576.

Your expectations of what is "perfect" must be pretty low. TV Out from a PC may look OK for SD videos but is as good as useless for anything else. The resolution you set on your PC doesn't matter using the TV out - it's either going to be PAL (576i) or NTSC/PAL-M (480i) - in fact using 720x576 with the TV out may cause very bad scaling on your PC's side, i.e. using the highest resolution possible (1280x1024 or whatever) will probably look better.

git_ireland is looking to connect to his "HDTV" so I assume he wants HDTV resolutions, therefore a VGA to SCART converter is probably not what he's looking for. That laptop has no TV-out either.

git_ireland

zilog_jones wrote: »

git_ireland is looking to connect to his "HDTV" so I assume he wants HDTV resolutions, therefore a VGA to SCART converter is probably not what he's looking for. That laptop has no TV-out either.

Zilog my man you seem to know what your talking about but your going over my head in certain areas. In laymans terms would this sort of setup work.

Im looking for something simple to work for me.

What about this set up

One of these paired with one of these for sound

As i said in laymans terms. If you had this sort of set up what way would you go about?

zilog_jones

Unfortunately, I don't think that cable will work. Normally VGA outputs on computers output in RGB colour (red, green and blue on separate signals), but the "component" input on your TV probably only accepts YPbPr.

There is the slight possibility your TV can take RGB video on those inputs, but you will have to check the manual for that. I've only seen projectors that can handle RGB on the component inputs like that (probably what this cable is designed for), as they're usually stuck for space for input connectors and have to do silly things.

VGA->Component converters seem uncommon unfortunately, so it seems you may have to go with the more expensive option of a VGA->HDMI converter.

Those audio cables should be fine at least

Are you sure 42PFP5332D is the correct model number of your TV? It seems to be a US model...

EDIT: Found the service manual for that range of TVs. It seems like you're out of luck with the above - the only way you can connect a PC is via HDMI. That VGA->Component cable won't work.

Zeppi

have a look here, this type of cable should do the trick for you but I'm might be wrong I'm open to suggestions.

http://myhometheater.homestead.com/vgacable.html
or
http://cgi.ebay.com/Brand-New-1-8M-HDMI-Male-to-VGA-HD-15-Male-Cable_W0QQitemZ170317072887QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item170317072887&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A570|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1308|301%3A1|293%3A2|294%3A50#ebayphotohosting

zilog_jones

The first link poses the same problem as any other straight VGA->Component cable - you need to either get the laptop to output YPbPr component on the VGA port (weird but not completely unlikely) or get the TV to take RGB on the YPbPr inputs (not possible with git_ireland's TV).

The second cable is for weird products that accept HDMI on a VGA input - wrong way round for this application, and wouldn't work anyway.

This should work, couldn't guarantee how well though: http://cgi.ebay.ie/VGA-PLUS-RIGHT-AND-LEFT-AUDIO-TO-HDMI-CONVERTER_W0QQitemZ350194929207QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_AudiVideoElectronics_Video_Electronics?hash=item350194929207&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1301%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

git_ireland

zilog_jones wrote: »

The first link poses the same problem as any other straight VGA->Component cable - you need to either get the laptop to output YPbPr component on the VGA port (weird but not completely unlikely) or get the TV to take RGB on the YPbPr inputs (not possible with git_ireland's TV).

The second cable is for weird products that accept HDMI on a VGA input - wrong way round for this application, and wouldn't work anyway.

This should work, couldn't guarantee how well though: http://cgi.ebay.ie/VGA-PLUS-RIGHT-AND-LEFT-AUDIO-TO-HDMI-CONVERTER_W0QQitemZ350194929207QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_AudiVideoElectronics_Video_Electronics?hash=item350194929207&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1301%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

I might give this option a g. I found my own manual and your right the only way to connect is via hdmi.

Thanks for all your help zilog

gamer

READ the tv manual,it will say these 3,or 4 resolutions are avaidable 4 pc use, one being 720x576, another 1024x768,etc eg pc to tv display.AS I said if the refresh rate on the pc graphics card is set ,higher than 60mhz ,theres a HIGH risk of damaging the tv tube.ITS BEST TO leave it at 60mhz 4 pc to tv display,on any tv, sdtv or HDTV.in my opinion non hd videos or dvds look best on a hdtv in 720px576 resoultion.
www.svideo.com has detailed info re best settings 4 connecting a laptop to a tv in order to get a clear precise picture a various resolutions.
I use my pc ,vga to hdmi connection ,on my hdtv .
I FIND THERES just 3 resolutions that produce a good clear picture on my hdtv,otherwise theres irritating distortion ,and flikering.I USE powerstrip ,free program ,to fine tune various settings for maximum clarity.
I Think the device vga to hdmi from ebay.ie is the best option for your tv,to give a high quailty hd display.
EVEN FROM a pc,if the original res of the video is 720p, then it will look best
at 720p on your hdtv at ,ie dvds from pc are designed 4 720x576.
OBVIOUSLY GAMES look better at 1024x768 minimum.
i was making the point in my previous post that dvds from my pc looked perfect
cos i was using 720p res ,which is the recommended resolution for standard
dvd playback mode,ie i see no point in paying standard dvds at hdres unless you are using a device with an upscaling chip built in.

zilog_jones

60MHz (6,000,000 Hz) is an impossible refresh rate, and even if you mean 60Hz that is the wrong frequency for PAL DVDs as they are 25fps or 50Hz interlaced video - unfortunately Windows is stupid and doesn't allow 50Hz, so you're better off using 75Hz or 100Hz (though not a lot of TVs can take the latter).

card is set ,higher than 60mhz ,theres a HIGH risk of damaging the tv tube.

That is complete bollocks, even assuming you mean 60Hz. Most LCD and plasma displays can take 50Hz-85Hz, if not a larger range. The OP's TV accepts 60Hz-85Hz from a computer. If it's a 30 year old TV there may be a "high risk" of damaging it but nothing remotely modern and certainly not a HDTV designed to take inputs from a PC. Stop being wrong, you're not helping anyone.

720p is 1280x720. 720p is HD. 720x576 is 576i. PCs are very good at upscaling DVDs and other SD video with freely available software, much better than most TVs. So if you can output to your TV's native resolution (1024x768 in the OP's case) you're very likely to get a decent picture for DVDs or anything else. G'way with your "upscaling chip" nonsense.

gamer

I checked my manual it says maximum refresh rate is 60mhz.SAMSUNG model.32Z419D ,supp0rted modes 480 ,720p, 1080i at 50mhz, 1080i at 60mhz. i use 720p,or 1024x768 resolution from pc.IT says DO NOT CONNECT pc or laptop thru HDMI,in the manual, im using vga to hdmi cable,60mhz refresh rate, 32bit quality.

SO IF YOU are saying 75mhz is supported on all HDTVS s ,i will not agree with you.
is there any program you,d recommend 4 upscaling dvds on a hdtv.
SVIDEO.com says too high refresh rate damages your tv .ID suggest consult your tv manual,or else leave refresh rate at 60mhz,IF YOU ARE not sure about it.MAX RES ON MY TV IS 1080i.re HD my tv has hdmi, oe component ,no vga in.only choice i have on MY TV is 50mhz,or 60mhz in, POWERSTRIP program may allow you to set 50mhz,it has custom refresh rate setting,i just leave my pc card at 60mhz all the time.
IT would be a shame to damage a new hdtv ,by setting it at 75mhz, if YOUR tv isv 60mhz maximum input.

witnessmenow

OP, what are you looking to do with the TV once its hooked up, watch videos, browse internet etc?

git_ireland

witnessmenow wrote: »

OP, what are you looking to do with the TV once its hooked up, watch videos, browse internet etc?

Hi Witness me now, yeh i would liketo be able to surf the net,possible use a wirelessmouse and keyboard.

git_ireland

Hi Zilog,

Thanks for your recent help.
I got the said convertor and used one of these for sound.

I connected the vga cable to the pc and into the convertor as well as the stereo jack into the convertor. Then connected the hmdi cable from the convertor into the tv.

Worked perfect for a minute - then went greenish and now when i connect it all up it says "video not supported".

Can any of you guys shed some light. Think i set the refresh rate @60hertz.

Any help appreciated.

zilog_jones

Have you tried different resolutions? Your TV's native resolution is 1024x768, but over HDMI it may only accept HDTV standard resolutions - 1280x720 and 1980x1080 (that box can't do the latter). I'm not sure exactly how that box works - does it have any settings? Is there any sign it is working? Is there another TV you can try it on? Maybe it is faulty.

git_ireland

Yeh, it was working for e few minutes and looked well.
Checked all the res and the screen stayed black.
No settings on the box bar a power light and that is on.
Has me stumped.No instructions with the box!!

zilog_jones

Try it on someone else's TV if possible, it sounds like it just died so send it back if it doesn't work anywhere.

gamer

Try 720p hd res at 60mhz. google hd res ,my samsung hdtvtv manual says DO NOT CONNECT any pc at vga into/ thru hdmi interface .YOU WIll get a blank screen.WHAT brand tv have you got.SOME tvs will not take in vga thru hdmi.
GOOGlE your vga device convertor instructions info.