Connecting laptop to TV - CABLE HELP!

[emzy]

Hey guys,

I got an old-style (fat backed) Philips TV last week from eBay (99p for 32 inches AND it seems to work fine!) just to use at uni and I'm wanting to be able to watch movies from my laptop on it.

The TV is a 32PW9617 and has 4 scart sockets, a set of red/yellow/white connectors and an S-Video port as well as some other white and red ones on the back that are apparently for speakers.

I THOUGHT I needed a VGA - RCA cable and so ordered one from eBay but when its come its one with red/green/blue connectors which I didn't think mattered (I thought they were just funky-coloured!) but obviously it won't work.

I've had another look and come to the conclusion that I actually need to use the S-Video port?

Can anyone tell me what I actually need? My laptop doesn't have an S-Video port, just a VGA (its a Dell). I've seen some VGA to tv RCA / S-Video adapter cables on eBay which seem to have a VGA going to an S-Video as well a female thing of some sort like this: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/VGA-TO-TV-RCA-...item439db82874

Or do I need a scanner box thing?! (I hope not...!)

I know the resolution on the TV will be a lot lower than the laptop but I've heard it'll still be OK for watching movies etc? Is that true?

Thanks for any help guys!

[MatJohnson]

VGA to S-Video converter should do it (http://www.cheap-battery.com/bzc032.html?currency=GBP)

Also, them 3 wires, I think its only the yellow that carries the picture, the other 2 are for sound so you will need sound on your laptop, or route that through a cd player via the AUX port

[Jamie B4]

Good old Mat - you know alsorts

[emzy]

Awesome, thanks for the help, I'll get ordering one

Got speakers to connect to the laptop so that's fine.

[Big G]

I was trying to connect my macbook to the TV a while ago without much luck. I had the DVI cable as the macbook has this mini display port that you need to buy another cable to turn that into DVI, but the DVI is only digital (yes, I know DVI can carry analog, but mine doesn't). it doesn't carry the analog signal like other flavors of DVI. so I thought about getting a mini display to VGA cable and then going VGA to S video as you said. I managed to get a picutre on my TV, but it was very flickery and un-usable

I even tried hooking it upto the TV in the car which is LCD and it was a little better, but still rubbbish.

if you have VGA out on the laptop it might work better than my experience since I had to convert things so much.

all that aside mini display to HDMI and off to the new 32" LCD TV mum's just bought works like a PC monitor

[MatJohnson]

Check the screen res and refresh rate. A normal CRT tv cannot keep up with a laptop refresh rate, so you will need to change that to get a steady picture.

[emzy]

How do I do that?

[MatJohnson]

Wouldn't worry about it for now. Try it out first and see what you get, if you are stuck either PM or post on here.

Don't forget you will prolly have to press the blue Fn key on your laptop and one of the F keys.