<p>How can I connect my laptop to a tv to use as a monitor? My tv has component video cable ports.</p>
<p>I've only done it with my ThinkPad which has an ATI graphics card and XP, and I was using an S-video cable, but it should be similar for component. Hopefully this will work...</p>
<p>First, get the cables properly hooked up to your TV and computer's ports.<br>
Go to Control Panel -> Display -> Settings tab -> Advanced button.
There should be an ATI Displays tab under this; mine shows icons for a TV, a monitor, and the regular laptop display.
If you've properly hooked it up, it should say something about it being connected under the TV picture. Click the little "on" button above the TV.
I'm assuming you have some type of HD or widescreen TV; you may have to turn it to a different input to get the computer to show up.</p>
<p>Like I said, I know this is how to do it using my specific setup - provided you have a similar setup, hopefully you can get the gist and figure it out.</p>
<p>If you have a Mac, it's easy. Apple sells an adaptor that goes from the mini-VGA out port into a box that you can connect either the RCA jack or an S-Video cable to. That cable then goes right into your TV. No software needs to be adjusted, OS X does it automatically.</p>
<p>The TVs at my high school also had VGA in ports. You can take a mini-VGA to VGA cable from this port as well if your school has these. (The sets at high school were Hitachis).</p>
<p>I've got my notebook computer hooked up to a 19" LCD TV via a VGA cable.</p>
<p>Which connection produces the best quality? My tv has the normal red, yellow, white inputs, as well as an s-video input. It is not HD or widescreen. It's a normal tube television, but a fairly newer model. Also, how good does the picture quality transfer?</p>
<p>bump.............</p>
<p>S-Video definitely produces better quality than the yellow input. I connect my laptop to the TV with an S-video cable. Picture quality will most likely be poorer on the TV than on the laptop screen, but it depends on your video card/software/TV.</p>
<p>What OS do you have by the way? Windows XP?</p>
<p>so we know your tv has RCA jacks and s-video. what ports does your laptop have? vga? s-composite? they sell these sort of cables and this could be done easily if your laptop has the ports available.</p>
<p>assuming your laptop has a vga connection this could come in handy.</p>
<p>those cables would plug into your tv where the antenna goes. from there you would then be able to just use a regular vga cable to connect the laptop/tv.</p>
<p>I am buying a laptop this summer. It will most likely be a Dell E1505, but I'm not sure what ports it has. Are there other connections TV's have besides S-video and RCA?</p>
<p>well it depends the kind of tv you have. i mean my lcd tv has all sorts of pots: rca, s-video, component, vga, dvi, etc. so i could connect a bunch of devices to it, but if your tv just has rca and s-video then that's all you can really work with.</p>
<p>Okay, I checked, and that's all I have. So s-video would be better than RCA? And just for future reference, does anyone know what tends to be the best connection type?</p>
<p>My question is, how do you get TV on your laptop?</p>
<p>FutureNYUstudent,
In order to do that, you'd have to buy a TV card and install it in your laptop. I'm not sure on a price for something like that, but I know it's doable because the United States Military Academy does it with all of their laptops they get from Dell.</p>
<p>The only things you can really install in a laptop are new RAM and maybe a hard drive/optical drive upgrade. You'd have to settle for a tuner that plugs into a USB port instead.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Okay, I checked, and that's all I have. So s-video would be better than RCA? And just for future reference, does anyone know what tends to be the best connection type?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>HDMI/DVI > VGA > Component (red, green, and blue wires) > S-Video > Composite (yellow wire)</p>
<p>Another way to get TV on a laptop is to download shows, or use programs such as Joost that broadcast TV over the internet.</p>
<p>What the hell is joost? Can you get that on a mac?</p>