# Hooking laptop to TV



## ibbrooks55 (Feb 24, 2008)

I have many movies on my laptop (with vista) which has a VGA jack and I was interested in hooking it up to my TV to watch the movies but my TV only has yellow and white (audio and video) component, it does not have Svideo or VGA. Are there any VGA-to-component cables out there or perhaps I could get a DVD player that has a VGA and hook it up laptop-dvdplayer-tv? I'm looking to do this the most inexpensive way possible. Thank-you


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## Rayway420 (May 7, 2007)

http://cgi.ebay.com/6-FT-VGA-to-5-R...tcZphotoQQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I believe this is a simple fix to your problem...I do the same thing with my Laptop and my Plasma...but I go via HDMI through the TV with a VGA end for the PC...

Good Luck


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## skinnywhiteboy (Jan 26, 2001)

ibbrooks55 said:


> I have many movies on my laptop (with vista) which has a VGA jack and I was interested in hooking it up to my TV to watch the movies but my TV only has yellow and white (audio and video) component, it does not have Svideo or VGA. Are there any VGA-to-component cables out there or perhaps I could get a DVD player that has a VGA and hook it up laptop-dvdplayer-tv? I'm looking to do this the most inexpensive way possible. Thank-you


Chances are, given your current setup, the video is going to look TERRIBLE. My Plasma has PC input and HDMI, which is really what you want.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

skinnywhiteboy said:


> Chances are, given your current setup, the video is going to look TERRIBLE. My Plasma has PC input and HDMI, which is really what you want.


I'm guessing this is not an HDTV from the description of the inputs.


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## skinnywhiteboy (Jan 26, 2001)

That was my guess also. I'm sure there is some kind of adapter he can buy (there almost always is) but if he actually wants to enjoy what he's watching that way, he'll have to spend some money.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

You mean for an HDTV?


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## skinnywhiteboy (Jan 26, 2001)

Well that would be the best way to do it. I tried one time to hook up a laptop to an old 27" RCA (400 lbs) using SVideo just to see what would happen, and the video was horrible.


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## ibbrooks55 (Feb 24, 2008)

ha, so i'm assuming the video will look horrible. My TV is not HD, it's just a 27'' Sanyo with an Audio and Video (yellow and white) component plugins. My laptop is brand new and I had a lot of movies that I wanted to watch on my TV but I am assuming from your replies that the video quality wont be worth the trouble so I'll just watch them on my 15'' laptop until I upgrade my TV. 

On a side note I asked a guy from circuit city if it was possible and he said a VGA to RCA cable does not exist , he swore on it... guess i'll print that ebay page out posted above...

quick edit: When you say video quality is horrible how bad are we speaking? Pixelated hell Nintendo graphics? Or just not HD?


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## skinnywhiteboy (Jan 26, 2001)

I mean HORRIBLE.


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## ibbrooks55 (Feb 24, 2008)

lol ok Thanks.


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## Soundy (Feb 17, 2006)

Er... that ebay-listed cable above is for component output - separate red, blue and green signals. Your TV has to have matching component inputs for it to work. The Circuit City guy is sort of right, there isn't just a simple cable you can use to run VGA out to composite video, which is what your TV input is.

What you CAN use is an AverKey, which will give you fairly decent video, or get a video card with a composite output. AveryKeys are relatively expensive (new ones on the order of $200-$300, eBay will be cheaper - for example, http://cgi.ebay.com/Avermedia-AverK...oryZ3759QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem) but they work quite well, as they're designed for presentation output from computers to TVs and projectors. We used to use them in a digital-arts school for instructors to show their PCs on the classroom projector... of course, this was before VGA input on projectors became very common.

You can also get a video card with a composite output, like my ATI Radeon9800 All-in-Wonder. It will work, but computer graphics won't look very good. If you're watching movies, though, and you're using a card that supports overlay mode (like the ATIs), video output will look just as good as coming from your DVD player (your biggest limitations will likely be in the quality of the source material itself).


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