rando01

dgs

Are you talking about using the round plug (S-video) or the trapezoidal plug with 3 rows of 5 pins (VGA plug)?

I've plugged in my desktop computer to a 37" Sony LCD with a VGA plug and it works well. The key to success is having a video output resolution from the laptop that works well for the TV. If you have a video card that puts out a reasonable resolution, it may be too fine for the laptop, but good on the TV. Lower laptop resolutions will look pretty fuzzy when blown up for larger screens.

You can either mirror the laptop screen to the TV or set up the TV as a second monitor. While the mirror is easiest, if you want different resolutions, the second monitor gives you more flexibility.

The other thing to think about is sound. The S-video and VGA plugs will give you video connections, but you'll probably want to get a stereo mini-plug to RCA plug adapter to run sound to your TV or stereo.

bicker

My laptop has both an HDMI port and a S-video port. I assume that if your choice is between S-video and VGA, you'd really be better off with S-video, but I've never really spent more than 5 minutes watching television that way.

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rando01

yea, its the VGA plug you describe. I dont have cable and watch just over the air tv, but there are a couple of shows that are on cable that I watch on HULU and would just like a bigger screen than my 15 inch monitor screen. I dont wanna buy a bigger monitor for the purpose but since I am planning on getting a new HDTV next week, i figured that would work.
You mentioned sound, does sound not have an option of going thru the VGA outlet...?

bicker

VGA connections do not carry sound.

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rando01

Well thats no good.....

dgs

No need to give up on the idea. There are several ways you can get sound from your laptop to better speakers via the headset jack.

1. You can use simple external computer speakers.
2. Headset jack to stereo via RCA y-adapter as described above.
3. Headset jack to TV inputs--probably also via RCA plug adapter, unless your new TV has a miniplug input.

rando01

yea, I might try that, didnt want to use just the computer speakers for the sound, the computer will be sitting in the opposite corner in the room and I am sure will sound distorted, plus the fact that computer speakers are not the greatest sounding anyways.

rando01

My laptop I will be using will be just for the tv thing only, as I have 3 laptops I want to use this one for the internet tv. I have wireless throughout my house so thats how it will be fed the signal.

Jure

I'd buy a replacement graphics card. You can get an external one for pretty cheap that outputs HDMI. If you're not planning on moving the laptop around a lot, it would be a considerable option.