I know it's been asked before ... HDMI to VGA

rozeboosje

Well I bought this dirt cheap cable with a Male HDMI plug on one end and a Male VGA plug on the other, but when I plug it into my laptop's HDMI port and connect that to the VGA port on a TV, it ain't woikin....

Firstly, is there anything I can do to make it work? I don't hold out much hope, to be honest. In my naivety I thought that the PC's HDMI output might be able to adapt to the VGA display connected to it, but it obviously can't. Or perhaps some video cards CAN and some video cards CAN'T. I'm trying to figure out how anybody could possibly sell a cable like this if it cannot EVER work.

But I gather I will probably have to buy a converter. Now I know that there are plenty of vultures out there trying to fleece people looking for this sort of stuff, and some of the prices I find on some websites seem positively exorbitant.

Conversely, when you see something like THIS on ebay:

and it's advertised for less than a tenner I'm starting to worry that this may be as much of a dud as that blasted cable was. So before I buy something like that.... do those things actually work?

Ta muchly

whizbang

That adapter works the other way around. VGA output to HDMI tv input.

I have seen USB video adapters around, maybe they are still.

rozeboosje

Er.... no. I posted this on the 29th of January and when I got no response I went and bought the adapter. It works. The HDMI end goes into the PC, and a screen's VGA Cable is plugged into the other end. My wife needed this for a whiteboard in the school where she works after the teacher went ahead and bought a fancy new laptop that had ONLY HDMI output for an external screen. Maybe I threw a red herring into the mix here when I mentioned hooking it up to my TV, but I only did that to prove that the VGA output was working before giving it to my wife to try with the whiteboard at her school. Sorry.

Alun

The thing is that HDMI is a digital signal, and VGA is an analogue one. You can convert from one to the other but a cheapo device costing only €10 sure as hell won't be able to do that

On the other hand, it is possible on some graphics cards to configure them to send a VGA signal over an HDMI connector, and the adapter you have will work in that instance.

I'd suggest poring over the options in the utility for your graphics card in your laptop and see if you see anything related to "VGA over HDMI" or similar.

rozeboosje

Alun, see my previous comment. I bought the item and it does work. With some limitations, granted. For example, it presents itself to the laptop as a monitor with a fairly low resolution - I don't remember exactly which, it was a little higher than 1024x768 but it sure as heck wasn't 1080p XD... But that's OK. For the whiteboard that the teacher in my wife's school needs to connect to it, the maximum resolution is more than good enough.

rozeboosje

Maybe I'm causing a bit of confusion by the way I posted the original thread. The original item I bought was this:
and it didn't work at all. I then posted this thread to ask whether the item displayed in the original post could possibly work. I got no replies so I took the risk and I bought it. Thankfully, as opposed to the cable in this comment, the adapter, cheap though it was, worked well enough for the purpose...

Alun

rozeboosje wrote: »

Alun, see my previous comment. I bought the item and it does work. With some limitations, granted. For example, it presents itself to the laptop as a monitor with a fairly low resolution - I don't remember exactly which, it was a little higher than 1024x768 but it sure as heck wasn't 1080p XD... But that's OK. For the whiteboard that the teacher in my wife's school needs to connect to it, the maximum resolution is more than good enough.

Sorry about that, I didn't read your last reply properly

Anyway, I can't see anything fundamentally different between the two cables, apart from the fact that the newer one has a line out socket for sound. They're essentially passive devices, just a cable really, with no electronics inside, so maybe the first one was just faulty, rather than being unsuitable. Hard to say with certainty though.

rozeboosje

That's possible.

RikuoAmero

rozeboosje wrote: »

Maybe I'm causing a bit of confusion by the way I posted the original thread. The original item I bought was this:
and it didn't work at all. I then posted this thread to ask whether the item displayed in the original post could possibly work. I got no replies so I took the risk and I bought it. Thankfully, as opposed to the cable in this comment, the adapter, cheap though it was, worked well enough for the purpose...

A cable like that will NEVER work. HDMI works with digital signals, VGA with analog. In order to get a video signal from a HDMI port on your laptop to the VGA port on a monitor, you'd need a converter box in between, a self-powered electronic device. The cable you show up there doesn't have anything like that.
In fact, I'm amazed that the device you show in your opening post works. I don't see a power cable for it, so where is it getting the electricity to do the conversion? An HDMI cable has only one pin for +5v which I doubt would be enough to power both the cable and a converter box.

rozeboosje

Well, yeah. I discovered that.

Somehow, though, the cable I showed in the OP does work - but don't ask me how. Tis some kind of voodoo as far as I'm concerned XD

Corkgirl18

Just giving this thread a bump instead of starting another asking a similar question. I need to connect an overhead projector my new laptop. My old one had a VGA port so the overhead lead could plug in. My new laptop just has a HDMI and USB ports.
I was told I need a VGA to HDMI cable to work. Looking at the above thread I may be mistaken? I don't really understand the whole analog vs digital thing.

Will any of these cable work? http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=vga-+hdmi+cable&tag=googiehydra-21&index=aps&hvadid=62048472084&hvpos=1t3&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12348910006663568516&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_8xwoffxmot_b

If anyone could help me I'd be really really grateful.

ED E

An active adapter like this will work most reliably.

the_syco

ED E wrote: »

An active adapter like this will work most reliably.

This sort of thing works fine. Got one for my father, as the projector only had a VGA connection on it.