Laptop and tv connection?

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blue-eye-boy

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Hey there, it's me again with all my questions. Is it in any way possible to connect a laptop to TV? Laptop has vga and 4 pin firewire, and tv only has rca input. Any ideas?
 
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Ecco

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you just need to buy an adaptor vga-rca, try your local computer shop or hi-fi corp or incredible.
 
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blue-eye-boy

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Thanks a lot. Just a pity it's so damn expensive. But I'll search anyway for something cheaper.
 
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LancelotSA

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Everyone always says this is easy but for the life of me I also cannot get it to work. I have an LG R405 laptop with an ATi graphics card and an s-video out connection. I have bought the cables to connect from s-video out to the three connections on the TV (video, audio left and audio right) and for the life of me I cannot get anything to show up on the tV.

I have gone into "display properties / settings and played with all those set ups there too and no joy!

So if anyone can provide more advice than buying the cables or knows what I am doing wrong please feel free to let me know. Also to the OP if you get it to work please let me know what you did! Thanks

EDIT : I even tried all of this... but this part I could not follow as I did not have the bold part :

Quick Summary under XP: In order to be able to see the movie playing on your TV you have to select the TV in the "Device settings". The movie will not play on both the laptop's screen and the TV under dual or clone view. Here's what you have to do under Win XP: Go to Start; Control Panel; Appearance and Themes; Display; Settings; Advanced; select the "tab" for your Graphics card; select "Device Settings"; select TV. For further details read below.
Click to expand...
 
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blue-eye-boy

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I really can't remember what I did to get it to show on the TV, it was a while back. It may sound stupid to ask you this, but don't you have like a shortcut key on you keayboard to switch displays? Mine is "Fn" and then "F3". But mine shows, but only grayscale. And I cant get it to show color on the tv, I bought new cable, and tried all the settings I was told to check, and nothing. Updated drivers and the lot. Thats why I now try something else.
 
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Ecco

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LancelotSA said:
Everyone always says this is easy but for the life of me I also cannot get it to work. I have an LG R405 laptop with an ATi graphics card and an s-video out connection. I have bought the cables to connect from s-video out to the three connections on the TV (video, audio left and audio right) and for the life of me I cannot get anything to show up on the tV.

I have gone into "display properties / settings and played with all those set ups there too and no joy!

So if anyone can provide more advice than buying the cables or knows what I am doing wrong please feel free to let me know. Also to the OP if you get it to work please let me know what you did! Thanks

EDIT : I even tried all of this... but this part I could not follow as I did not have the bold part :
Click to expand...

I think you problem is that you going from s-video to 3 rca cables (which as you mention is video, audio left and audio right - although this is incorrect).

The S-video port is purely for video, the audio components need have to come from your sound card!

Typically, in order to connect your pc to tv from the s-video port, your s-video adapter should only output to 1 rca. The other 2 rca cables must output from the soundcard.

LanceLot I reckon you have the wrong s-video to rca adaptor. I believe yours is probably splitting the video into red, blue and green components.
 
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LancelotSA

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catweasel said:
I think you problem is that you going from s-video to 3 rca cables (which as you mention is video, audio left and audio right - although this is incorrect).

The S-video port is purely for video, the audio components need have to come from your sound card!

Typically, in order to connect your pc to tv from the s-video port, your s-video adapter should only output to 1 rca. The other 2 rca cables must output from the soundcard.

LanceLot I reckon you have the wrong s-video to rca adaptor. I believe yours is probably splitting the video into red, blue and green components.
Click to expand...

Sorry, my mistake, my memory is getting bad with age!! haha

Just pulled my cables out and you are right. I have attached an image of what I am using, the right hand two connections are for video (S video into laptop other into TV) and the left hand three are a separate cable for audio (one into laptop mic jack other two into left and right on TV).

So got the right cables but still no joy.
 
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blue-eye-boy

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Okay, but the new cable I bought has on one end s-video, and on the other end 2 rca plugs, one red and other one white. Why would they even bother to make these cable with all the rca outputs, while it wont work at all?
 
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blue-eye-boy

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IT WORKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I took a rca cable, which has on one end 2 female rca's, and one male output on the other. Plugged in above mentioned cable and and it gave me color. Hell thanks you all, without intending to solve THIS problem, you did! Thanks a lot.:D:D:D:D
 
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Ecco

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Yup you have the correct cables Lancelot.

On my notebook, in order to push the video out to the s-video port you have to press the function + F4, i presume this is what you have to do on most pc's. AFAIK, you don't need to change the display settings unless you want to run the tv as an additional monitor to the original screen.

So on your pc, its probably the function key and one of the F keys, look for one that looks like a monitor or something like that. Your notebook screen should flicker and either show exactly whats on the tv or it will be blank, and you will only be able to see the tv.
 
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LancelotSA

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catweasel said:
Yup you have the correct cables Lancelot.

On my notebook, in order to push the video out to the s-video port you have to press the function + F4, i presume this is what you have to do on most pc's. AFAIK, you don't need to change the display settings unless you want to run the tv as an additional monitor to the original screen.

So on your pc, its probably the function key and one of the F keys, look for one that looks like a monitor or something like that. Your notebook screen should flicker and either show exactly whats on the tv or it will be blank, and you will only be able to see the tv.
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Yeah, mine is Fn-F5 but not having any joy. As shown above the one link I gave goes into detail what to do and I tried it all but no picture on my TV. I had a DVD playing on my laptop and was wanting to show it on the TV. Suppose I will have to fiddle some more.
 
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Ecco

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These things are finicky mate. Keep fiddling, good luck.
 
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sn3rd

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Often (dependent on the video adapter as well as the tv), S-Video to Composite (RCA) doesn't work, but if you use S-Video(out) to S-Video(in) it works. Some video adapters have trouble picking up that there is a TV on the other side of its S-Video port, so they don't display a picture. Others allow you to force the S-Video port to output a signal, and this works.
 
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LancelotSA

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sn3rd said:
Often (dependent on the video adapter as well as the tv), S-Video to Composite (RCA) doesn't work, but if you use S-Video(out) to S-Video(in) it works. Some video adapters have trouble picking up that there is a TV on the other side of its S-Video port, so they don't display a picture. Others allow you to force the S-Video port to output a signal, and this works.
Click to expand...

The TV does not have an s-video port though. How do you go about forcing a signal out?
 
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sn3rd

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Also, one thing that works (and I know its quite a workaround) is to have a device that DOES have S-Video in, connect it up, have the computer detect the signal, then switch over to the TV you want to use. This is one way to test that the port actually WORKS.

I've had quite a bit of experience troubleshooting this problem: I once had a notebook that had S-Video out, but I couldn't get it to work with my TV (which only had Composite Video in). I took the notebook to Cats Digital, and the guys there said that S-Video to RCA wouldn't work (I had a cable). I asked if I could try. It worked on one of their TVs (weird). Then I tried another TV (a much lower-spec model), and it didn't work. I tried S-Video to S-Video, and the lower-spec TV worked. Then, while it was still outputting, I switched the cable for the S-Video to RCA, and all TVs picked it up.

As I say, I think it has something to do with the video adapter not being able to detect a device on the other side of the spliced connection
 
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