A Guide to connect your laptop or PC to HDTV

Traditional TV set

The cableyou need depends on your TV and your laptop. Most of the new laptops today havean S-video output built-in. If you have an S-video output on your laptop and anS-video input on your TV then you will need an S-video cable. If you have anold laptop and an old TV you will probably need a standard video cable whichusually has yellow connectors at each end.

High Definition TV (HDTV)

Most oftoday’s HDTV comes in either LCD or Plasma. High Definition TV usually is moreexpensive than traditional TV set and can be amounting to thousands of dollarsfor extremely large sets. All HDTV sets are in 16:9 ratio and have output for5.1 digital sound and are extremely thin.

HighDefinition content or HDTV has some options that will give you higher qualityimage than you would get when using an S-video or a yellow composite videocable. To get the highest quality video, your laptop or PC needs to have avideo card with DVI  (Digital Video Interface) output.

This guidewill help you connect your laptop or PC with Vista operating system to a HDTV).

1.    First,you need to check if you have the needed cables to connect your laptop to yourTV. 

For better picturequality, you should connect the laptop or PC to the TV using standard VGA portsor via the DVI to HDMI cable provided with yourTV that supports these ports.

If you laptop or PChas no DVI port, you can transform your laptop’s USB port into a DVI port usingan adapter to connect it toyour HDTV.  The adapter has 128mb onboardmemory, making it capable to handle resolution of up to 1400x1050 with qualitysimilar to a DVI port.

2. Make sure that youconnect the cable to the TV before turning on the laptop or PC as it may failto detect and recognize external display sometimes. Open the display settings byclicking on Start àControl Panel àPersonalizationthen click on “Connect to a projector or other external display” to get intoWindows Mobility Center. Click on “Connect display” option to automaticallydetect and activate output to the TV screen. You can either mirror content ofyour computer on the TV or extend the display just like a dual monitor screen.

3. Pick upyour TV remote and switch to "External Inputs" from the menu. Youwill need to change the default "Video 1" to a different selectionwhich may be "HDMI 1" or "Video 2" depending on how youhave made the connection.

Important:You may also need to change the screen resolution of your TV using the Displaysettings in your Control Panel else the picture may appear distorted.

How to Setup Audio from Laptop to HDTV

The above mentionedinformation will help you get video signal from laptop to show up to your HDTV.However, you will need to use a different cable in order to get the audio toyour TV. Every laptop has a mini-headphone jack input so you can just buy a mini-headphone cable with male connectorson both ends.

If your HDTVdoes not have a mini-headphone jack input you can use a headphone to RCA cable to get the audiofrom your laptop or PC to your HDTV.