How to Connect Laptop to TV, Computer to Television, PC to HDTV

Published on September 24 2010 by Timili

Do you want to share your downloaded movies or your latest digital photos to your friends? The same goes for showing your good trip videos or PowerPoint presentations to your family from your laptop onto your beautiful widescreen high-definition television (HDTV). So how to connect your computer to your TV, especially the popular HDTVs? Here’s a quick walk-through method how to connect a laptop or pc to your TV/HDTV.

Part 1: Know about Jacks or Ports for Connecting Laptop to TV
To connect your computer to a TV, your computer needs to have an output port that matches one of the input ports on your TV. There are five basic types of jacks, or ports involved:
1. Composite/phono plug (RCA) – An RCA connector, sometimes called a phono connector, is used for analog audio and video components. Three round colored sockets are standard — left audio is white, right audio is red, and composite video is yellow. These are standard jacks on older TV’s and laptops . A three-prong cable, readily available at any computer or electronics, is the easiest way to make an RCA laptop to TV connection.

Converters/Scalers – This is the most powerful method that involves using a scan converter box, which takes a VGA signal and converts it into S-Video or component video. Besides, Converters/Scalers accept various resolutions in and can output selectable video output formats.So you can have inputs and outputs like these: 800x600->1080i, 1280x1024->720p, etc.
Products and more Info: TV Converters, Composite and S-video to HDMI Converter with Scaler

2. S-Video – This is probably the most common way out there currently because an S-Video cable is cheap as heck and just about every TV under the sun has a S-Video port. You’ll have to make sure you laptop is equipped with this port. Remember, there are two types of S-Video cables: 4-pin and 7-pin. Most laptops and PC’s are equipped with a 7-pin port, so if your TV only has a 4-pin S-Video port, then this method will not work.

3. VGA – If you have a HDTV, then you will be better off connecting using a VGA cable. It gives much better quality than S-Video and as with S-Video, the cable is very cheap. You usually won’t find a VGA port on regular TV’s though, so this option is if you have an HDTV.

4. DVI - DVI stands for Digital Visual Interface with “digital” being the key word there. The digital signal will give a higher quality picture than either S-Video or VGA. Of course, your computer will need to have a DVI connection and your TV will need to be an HDTV. This cord is definitely not cheap, it ranges anywhere from $40 to $80.

5. HDMI – Using HDMI will give you the best quality by far. No computers that I know of yet have HDMI ports, but you can get a DVI to HDMI cable to connect it to your HDTV. HDMI is compatible with DVI. If your HDTV has an audio input, you might be able to connect a separate audio cable from your computer sound card directly to the TV. Otherwise, you'll need to connect the audio signal to a different device, such as external computer speakers or your home stereo system.

Part 2: Step by step to Connect your Laptop/Computer/PC to your TV after choosing the right cable
1. Turn off your computer and place it within easy reach of your TV. Disconnect the monitor, but leave the mouse and keyboard connected.

2. Connect the right video cable from your computer's output to your TV.

3. Turn on your TV and set it to the input that matches the output on your computer. You might need to refer to the user's guide included with your TV for instructions on how to do this.

4. Turn on your computer.
Make sure both screen aspect ratio and pixel resolution of TV and laptop are compatible. You should see Windows displayed on your TV. If the screen looks stretched, or part of the screen seems cut off, you probably need to adjust the screen resolution in Windows. You can adjust both picture ratio and resolution with the Display Settings on the Control Panel of a PC laptop. Mac laptops automatically adjust settings for screen resolutions and ratios; if necessary, the adjustments can be tweaked in System Preferences. If you can't see Windows on your TV, you might need to reconnect the computer to your monitor and adjust the screen resolution before you connect to your TV.
Note: Cables for VGA, DVI, and component video don't support audio signals. However, HDMI cables do support audio signals, but not all HDMI-enabled video cards support audio.