How Can I Connect My Laptop to My TV?

Many computer users find joy in sharing videos with friends, watching uploaded movies on YouTube, or watching free movies online. The multimedia experience delivered by computer systems is only as good as the supporting hardware installed. Normally, multimedia would involve the audio system of your machine as well as the video system. Although laptop display monitors have relatively high resolution rates which allow for the high quality playbacks, they are at most small in dimension compared to LCD or LED based television sets.

The ability to watch stored or online videos or even work on your laptop using your TV as the main output is something that can be done only with particular laptops. The following steps will allow you to connect your laptop to your TV only if your computer system supports multiple display functionality. Your laptop also must have either a VGA or S-Video output port. This is because what you are essentially doing is you are turning your TV into a secondary display option.

Step 1: Right click on a blank portion of your desktop and choose Properties.
Step 2: Click on the Settings tab and click on the Advanced button.
Step 3: Activate the multiple display feature. To save the settings simply click OK.
Step 4: Connect the video cable from your laptop to your TV. Make sure that both machines are turned off.
Step 5: To get the display on your TV, set the source to file extension VGA. There is usually a dedicated key on your laptop that will do this automatically. Refer to your machine's documentation.

For laptops that only have S-Video outputs, you will need not only an S-Video cable but also an audio cable. To connect your laptop to your TV:

Step 1: Plug the S-Video cable to your laptop and the other end to the TV.
Step 2: Plug the audio cable to the audio out port (or headset port) on your laptop and the other end to your TV.
Step 3: Change video source to S-Video based on the documentation of your machine.

If your laptop does not have either a VGA or S-Video output port, another option is to purchase a PC to TV converter box. You will need to install the corresponding software driver included in the package and follow the documentation to make this solution work.