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Sep 05
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Once you’ve recorded a video using a streaming recorder, one of the things you’ll probably want to do at some stage is to watch on your TV instead of your computer. After all, you probably don’t want to become completely anti-social with the family…!
So this post is all about how to connect your laptop (or even your standalone) computer to your TV and so, in effect, your computer becomes like an ordinary domestic video recorder / player. The difficulty, however, comes down to the myriad of different types of connectors that exist in laptops and TV’s and this is simply down to the age of the equipment you have.
Before I start explaining the various connection types, I thought it would be useful to provide a little background information (but not too much, I don’t want to overload you with too much techy-talk). Most laptops have something called a VGA socket (a small 3-row, 15-pin “D” socket located at the back or side of your laptop) which allows you to connect to your laptop to an external monitor. But the signal it emits is NOT compatible with a TV. A television is just manufactured to receive TV broadcast signals either from a terrestial, satellite or cable antenna. In the US (and Japan), TV stations, satellite or cable providers emit their signals in a special ‘format’ called NTSC. In most of Europe, the system used is called “PAL” (with the exception of France, who use something called “SECAM”). And VGA is not directly compatible with NTSC, PAL or SECAM and, therefore, it has to be converted.
However, more modern TV’s (especially high-definition ones) have something called an HDMI socket (there’s normally more than one). This leads us to the first option. We’ll cover other options afterwards. If both your computer and TV has an HDMI socket, this is, by far, the easiest option. All that’s required is to purchase an HDMI cable, plug each end into the TV and Computer and you’re good to go. Note that HDMI cables transmit both video and sound (including the latest Dolby 7.1 and DTS high definition audio). I would recommend you purchase a longer cable to allow some flexibility in placing your laptop in a convenient location and, that is compatible with the new High Definition 3D TV’s that are making their way into the marketplace. You can get one from Amazon HERE. Using your remote control, remember to change the channel to use the correct HDMI port (depends on how many you have) otherwise you won’t see anything!
But if you have an older TV or laptop, then we have to explore alternative methods. The best way to find the correct approach is to review these steps and options:
1. The first thing you should check is whether the graphics card in your computer is capable of emitting a TV-style signal. If you have a PC, in XP or Vista goto the “Control Panel”, then select “Display” which allows you to change the resolution of your screen. If you’re using Windows 7, it’s highly likely that your laptop has an HDMI port so just follow the instructions I mentioned before. Once there, click on the”Advanced” button and this is where you’ll see several tabs of different options related to your graphics card including an ‘information’ tab. In this ‘information’ tab, it should tell you whether your card can send signals to a TV or not.
2. Your next problem is figuring out which cables you need and / or whether you need a converter box to convert your computer’s video signals into TV ones. The first place to start is to examine which video ports you have on your computer. Almost all computers have a 3-row, 15-pin VGA socket located at the back or side of the computer & is normally used to connect an external monitor to your laptop. And even some High-Definition TV’s have a VGA port so all you would need is a VGA cable with 15 “male” pins in both ends, connect both ends and you’re done. Note, however, this only transmits video signals, so the sound would still be on the laptop! Back to this in paragraph 4; let’s concentrate on getting the video across first. If your TV doesn’t have a VGA port (unlikely), then the most probable option is that it will have either (a) a RCA or ‘phono’ style sockets or (b) a SCART socket or (c) an ‘S-Video’ socket. An RCA style socket can be identified quite easily: it will be round and will likely have three colors: yellow (this is for video), red (stereo sound, right channel) and white (stereo sound, left channel). A SCART socket is a 21-pin D-style socket more common on European TV’s and, hence often called the “Euroconnecter”. An S-Video socket is simply round and has either 4 or 7-pins. So our goal here is to connect the VGA port of your computer to one of the three possible options on your TV. In addition, it’s possible that some conversion between a computer and TV signal has to take place so the first thing to do would be to purchase a suitable box. I would recommend the “Sabrent PC to TV Converter Box” which can be purchased from Amazon (US only) or THIS ONE if you’re in the UK or elsewhere. And you’ll also have to purchase the cables seperatly too (you can get them from Amazon too). Note that this option (VGA-to-TV) is compatible with PC’s and Mac’s. The converter box can produce images to a resolution of 1024 x 768 which is fairly reasonable and at least, certainly watchable. If you decide to take this route, make sure you switch everything off (TV, PC, DVD, whatever) before installing the box and cables.
3. There are other options that might be available IF your computer has more than just a VGA port. You might have the round “S-Video” connector (only transmits video, no sound) or possibly, there’ll be something called a DVI (Digital Video Interface) socket but confusingly, there are several different types of DVI. So these combinations complicate things when it comes to purchasing cables. But don’t worry, I’ve found something to help you out! The best thing I’ve found on the web is a site that asks you for your PC and TV (or DVD / Video) connectors and, it gives you list of what you need to purchase. You can click on each item and the site then takes you to a well-known UK electronics store (Maplin). For folks in the US, just take a note of the cables and you’ll find them on Amazon. The site is very easy to use and extremely useful: http://www.plugpctotv.com .
4. Ok, now let’s move onto getting the sound from the computer to the TV. Remember that options 2 and 3 only covered transferring the video across, not the sound. Thankfully, this is a little simpler. Your laptop should have a small headphone socket or jack which, yes you guessed it, allows you to listen to stuff on your laptop with headphones. So all you need to do is buy a cable that takes sound from this socket and plug the other end into the TV or, via an ‘input’ of your Video or DVD Player / Recorder. The typical cable consists of this small ‘headphone’ plug on one end (plugs into computer) and two ‘phono’ or ‘RCA’ male plugs on the other end, which are normally coded in two colours: red (right stereo) and white (left stereo). These two RCA cables plug into either your ‘input’ sockets on your TV directly or the ‘input’ sockets of your DVD / Video recorder.
5. As I just mentioned, you could plug the sound cables directly into your TV or….you could do this via your existing ‘input’ sockets on your existing DVD or Video recorder. This leads me to the final point. If you’re going to connect the sound to the VCR / DVD recorder, just make sure the video is transferred to the same VCR / DVD recorder. The rule is this: all your ‘input’ cables simple have to be plugged into the same place.
So there you have it: with a little bit of work, you should now be able to hook up your computer to your TV without any problem whatsoever. If you’ve purchased a laptop that’s one or even upto two years old, then it should have an HDMI port and that’s obvsiouly the way to go. And as long as you have one of those rather nice High Definition TV’s, it will also have one or probably several HDMI ports so all you need to do is buy a male-to-male HDMI cable which you can get pretty much anywhere. When you connect the cable, both Mac’s and PC’s automatically “sync” your computer with the TV so everything is done for you (again, make sure you choose the right HDMI ‘channel’ on your TV!).
If you have any questions, just post a comment. Thanks for reading!
Andy
