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bigben334

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 30, 2005
102
0
im at work right now and i am close to a computer store...i want to connect my laptop that i am typing on right now to my tv at home...my tv at home is a sony regular tube television that i bought like like 2 years ago...i think it was around like 700-800 bucks and its silver...i know that i have a jack on the front of the tv that im thinking is a VGA slot to connect a computer to it but im not sure...i would really like to try it tonight and i would like to go to the computer next door and buy a VGA-VGA cable to connect my laptop to my tv but im not 100% that the slot on the front of my tv is actually VGA...im just guessing.........so basically im asking does anyone somehow know what that jack is on the front of my tv...and whatever that jack is...can i just connect my laptop to it and it will work just like that or will i have to install something...i am using a compaq presario 1500 laptop....thanks for any help
 
I have a Sony 36-incher...it has composite video and S-video inputs on the front panel. Not very many tube TVs have VGA that I'm aware of...you're much more likely to see it on flat-panel displays.
 
I assume the jacks on the front of your TV are round with a hole in the middle and coloured yellow, red and white (or black...), there might only be one of the red and white ones if it only accepts mono sounds. (this is RCA)

Otherwise you might have a round port with lots of small holes in it. (i think this is S-Video)

To export sound you will need a cable like this one. you plug this into the headphone socket on your laptop.

To export the picture.
You then also want a VGA to video adapter but I'm not sure where to get them from, after some research last year Apple are the only people to sell these kind of adapters, unfortunately they don't sell computers with VGA so the only one they do is the DVI to Video adapter. see this link if your laptop has DVI too you could use that, however you will also need an S-Video to S-Video or RCA to RCA cable.

If you laptop has a round s-video port with lots of holes you're in luck and just need an s-video to s-video cable for the picture.

If it's anything like my iMac, windows *should* then pick up the TV as an external monitor automatically and it should then just work, you may need to mess around with the monitor control panel as well... Windows will probably display on the TV in extended desktop mode, but as I've never done it with a PC I don't know how it works.
 
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