How to Connect Your PC to Your TV
Posted on | July 21, 2009 |
This may seem remedial to a lot of readers but I’m constantly amazed at how many people do not realize that they could connect their computer to their TV. There are a lot of reasons to connect a PC to your TV. Today DVD players are standard hardware in a PC. Using your PC will eliminate the need for an extra 50 to 100 dollar DVD player. If your in the market for a Blu-Ray player but are concerned about buying something that will be obsolete in 6 months, external PC Blu-Ray drives are selling for cheaper than the players. While I haven’t tried it yet, there are a lot of people that use TV tuner cards to stream cable television to their TV sets. In addition, there are a lot of network television stations that stream their programming over the Internet. Finally, connecting your PC to your TV or stereo receiver is a great way to play music during parties.
It used to be that the computer software was the big limitation with connecting your PC to your TV. That is no longer the case. If you have Windows XP, or above, you can connect your desktop PC or laptop to a TV. All you need is the proper cabling.
As a side note, I’m sure that other operating systems, such as those for Linux or Mac machines, will also work. My experience has been exclusively with Windows so that will be the focus of this article. However, I welcome any comments or suggestions from people that have experience with other operating systems. Also, I will be focusing on TVs but all the same principles apply for stereo receivers.
There are probably hundreds of different ways to connect a PC to a TV. If you are lucky, your TV and PC have the right input/output combination that you do not need a cable adapter. If you are not so lucky, don’t worry. Cable adapters are not scary and they are usually fairly cheap (depending on the kind).
Okay, to start out, check your TV and PC to see exactly what it is that you are working with. If it is an older TV, you may only have a composite connection (that’s the three wire cable with red, yellow, white connectors). Newer TVs will usually have HDMI, component, VGA, and/or DVI inputs. Modern computers will have VGA and/or DVI outputs. A lot of laptops will also have S-Video or some variant of Mini/Micro-DVI (the latter is more typical of Apple computers). There is also a new form of digital connector called DisplayPort that is popping up on newer laptops. While it hasn’t made a big splash yet, most computer manufacturers are going to make the switch from HDMI to DisplayPort.
I won’t rant about it too much but I do realize that there may be people out there that have not heard of DisplayPort before. The main reason manufacturers are switching is because DisplayPort does not carry the same licensing fees that are required to put a HDMI interface into a system. This should not discourage the consumer because there already exist DisplayPort to HDMI adaptors so your TV is not obsolete.
Okay back to the connections. Probably the best-case scenario is if your TV has a VGA or DVI input on it. You won’t need an adaptor but you may need an additional audio cable. With the amount of audio cables that come with electronic equipment (MP3 players, CD players, stereos etc), there is a good chance you already have the audio cable you need. Again check your TV, it will either have a 3.5mm stereo plug or the white and red plugs from a composite cable associated with the VGA/DVI input. If it is the red/white composite audio inputs, the cable will have to be red/white plug on one end and a 3.5mm stereo plug on the other. The 3.5mm plug will go into your PCs headphone/speaker output socket.
Another best-case scenario would be if your PC had an HDMI or DVI (with sound) output and your TV had an HDMI input. For this scenario all you would need is an HDMI cable or an HDMI cable plus a DVI to HDMI adaptor.
For the rest of the connections you will need some sort of adaptor. The combinations are pretty much limitless. Instead of listing them all, I will give you some things to pay attention to when buying a cable/adaptor. Pretty much every cable type has multiple names for the same connector. For example, S-Video is also called Mini-DIN. Furthermore, Mini-DIN connectors have many variants but only the 4 pin variety is a true S-Video connector. DVI connectors also come in many variations, some are digital only while others are analog and digital. The only way to tell the difference is to look at the pin configuration. Make sure you know what you need. For that same reason, if you are going to buy cables/adaptors online, make sure there is a picture of what you are going to get.
Now that you are connected, there is just one last step to get your PC to display on the TV. You need to configure your PC display settings. The exact procedure will change based on your graphics card but this should get you pretty close. Normally I will right click on the Desktop and go to Properties. You can also get there by clicking on the Start
Menu -> Settings -> Control Panel -> then select Display. Once there, select the Settings tab and click the Advanced button. Now this is where it changes a bit based on your video card. What you need to do is look for a tab that is specific to your video card. It will usually have the manufacturers name on the tab (i.e. ATI, NVIDIA, or DELL). Once you’ve found the graphic card specific tab, you need to look for something called Clone or Dual Display, etc. Check the appropriate box for the configuration you want and click Apply.
Finally, I leave you with some troubleshooting tips and other thoughts. Older TVs won’t display high resolution. Also, some newer TVs will only accept certain resolutions. If your display does not work right away, try playing with the resolution. If that still doesn’t work, try rebooting your computer with it connected to your PC. The PC may auto detect the display and configure it for you. When shopping for a new PC or TV, pay attention to the connectivity options. I recently got burned buying a new laptop that had a graphics card that could support DVI with sound. However the PC manufacturer decided not to include it. So I can get a digital signal but only analog sound, pretty lame. Had I checked the message boards for the computer, I would have quickly found out that the digital display ports do not include sound. In regards to where to buy cables/adaptors: I highly recommend the online website monoprice.com. I highly do not recommend you buy any cables/adaptors from Best Buy. You will get ripped off.
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