Nerdy audio laptop DVD TV fiasco.
Nerdy audio laptop DVD TV fiasco.
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Discussion

Huntsman

Original Poster:

9,313 posts

279 months

Tuesday 27th January 2009
quotequote all
Please keep it in mind that I am utterly hopeless with anything with less than 6 pistons and 2 carbs.

May last year we bought a new Dell Vostro 1510 Laptop and a new Phillips 32PFLblahblahsomething TV.

I want to watch a DVD using the laptop to play the DVD on the telly.

The laptop does not have a HDMI socket, it does have a 15 pin VGA output.

The TV does have HDMI and some other coloured sockets. Quite a few of them, a group of 5 and another group of three. Yellows, reds, whites....

So I bought a VGA to 3 something (red/blue/green) cable on ebay, says on the ebay page that it allows you to watch DVD's via a lap top but no good for YPBPR (whatever that is).

Cable arrived today.

Book for telly says you can only use TV as a monitor for the PC using HDMI not using VGA.

How do I connect them so I can watch the DVD?

(As if all this is not annoying enough the film I wanted to watch is on bloody TV this week, harrumpf!)

I'm going back to my engine rebuild.

Dupont666

22,852 posts

221 months

Tuesday 27th January 2009
quotequote all
The product you require is called a Scan Converter, or often a PC-to-Video or VGA-to-Video converter. It will take the output from a VGA port (such as the external monitor port on your laptop) and convert it to a TV-compatible video signal. However this method does not offer some of the more advanced features that the TV-Out on a video card will provide (such as TV-native resolutions and Video Overlay). Also, to work effectively the screen resolution needs to be quite low - while 1024x768 will normally work, it often results in 'shimmering' images. 800x600 or even 640x480 are more suitable
resolutions for TV output via scan conversion.

10 Pence Short

32,880 posts

246 months

Tuesday 27th January 2009
quotequote all
Has your laptop got an S-Video connector on the side? I know my old Dell has.

Huntsman

Original Poster:

9,313 posts

279 months

Tuesday 27th January 2009
quotequote all
10 Pence Short said:
Has your laptop got an S-Video connector on the side? I know my old Dell has.
D666 - thanks, I'll print this and go to Maplins or somewhere.

10 PS - no S-video on the laptop, I read a review online about this laptop (after I bought it, bright eh?) it criticised it for no hdmi and no S-vid.....

Anychance of updating you prison diary?