PC -> TV

[saif]

Hi. How can I connect my trusty old laptop to my shiny new TV?

I'm in Japan atm so I have no SCART based majesty but I do have some D1 terminal stuff. I think it is some component thing and the picture is comparable to RGB (not as good would be my personal comparison ). Is there anyway I can get the VGA output into the telly via this socket?

I won't bother with composite signals so if that is your advice.....just leave it.

Thanks for any help.

[Super Stu]

You forgot one, Svideo. Every graphics card worth its salt these days has svideo out. You could get one of those new ATI cards that has component out.

Or save ?300, get a card that does Svideo and nip to the pub instead.

[Treble]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but my laptop has an S-Video connection. What's involved in connecting it to a TV?

[Super Stu]

An svideo lead (male end goes into the PC) to svideo/scart (whatever your TV prefers). In Windows there will be an option to switch output to TV mode (often you'll need boot the pc/laptop with the Svideo cable connected beforehand). On your laptop, you may find a button which cycles through the display outputs modes (tft/vga out/tv).

[saif]

Treble you little ****!

Oh well, I knew Stu'd be able to help me out in some way.
My laptop hasn't got TV out. Just a VGA out. Its trusty and old.
I dunno what the similarities are between the D-terminal and VGA but I know that someone out there will know if there are any.

[Papercut]

The D1 terminal stuff is a japanese component/prog scan video connector.

To get your pc running through your tv on that D terminal connector you'd need a prog scan tv and a rgb -> component transcoder. You'd probably only be able to run low-ish resolutions too, depending on which prog scan modes the tv supported, and you'd have to make sure the video refresh was 60Hz.

I imagine your tv isn't prog scan, and decent rgb transcoders are a little pricey.

Better off getting a video card with s-video as Stu says.

[saif]

Thanks guys (except Treble of course!) much appreciated even if it was not the best news.

[Firsty]

What exactly are you doing in Japan to have your own tv?
How long are you there for!?

As I recall there are ways to mod the dac on some videoboards to output RGB signals at 15KHz. It's very technical tho, and was developed for older video cards. TV out was a novelty back then. Things like an S3 virge card, about a fiver (if even) these days. No good to you since A)won't go in a lap top, B) you don't have RGB, C) the gfx cards are **** by today's standards.

Why don't you just stick to the lovely screen on the laptop? Mmmm.