Watch Streaming Videos on Your TV; Connect Your Laptop to Your Television

Streaming video has transformed the way many of us have watched movies and television.  This is quite evident to me as I’ve seen a post I published 8 months ago, 50 Free Sites to Watch Movies and TV Online, continues to get 1000 or more hits each day. The ability to view our favorite videos free and directly from our computer has decreased the necessity of television as we once knew it.  However, there is a drawback to watching videos  on our computer. That is the size limitation of our computer screen.

Today’s post is meant to provide you the resources to easily hook your laptop directly to your television.  Keep in mind that the quality of the videos will be lesser than if viewed directly on your monitor.

Your Connections

You’ll need to first examine both your television and laptop to determine which type of cables you’ll need.  If you have a DVI port on your laptop and a HDMI port on your TV, you can use a HDMI to DVI cable. This connection will give you the best quality of the options listed. The 2nd option would be VGA. If both your computer and TV have a VGA In and VGA Out port, you’ll be able to pickup a VGA 15 Pin male to male cable. The last option is the S-Video. If you have an S-Video port on both your TV and computer, this is yet another option. Here’s a quick glance at what these ports look like.

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Cables Needed

The cables that will be necessary for your to connect your PC to your TV is dependent upon those connections you have on both your PC and your TV. The options below are HDMI to DVI, S-Video Cable, VGA 15 Pin Male to Male Cable and the Mini to RCA Audio Cable (for audio).

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Tutorials

Rather than providing a step-by-step process for how to install, I found existing references that walk you through the process. Here’s a few of the better tutorials I found to choose from.

How to Connect a Laptop Computer to Your Television Screen (labnol.org)

How to Connect a Computer to Your TV Set (electronichouse.com)

Connecting Your PC to Your TV Set (weetheat.nl)

Hopefully you’ve found this helpful. Have you connected your computer to your television? Which method do you use? As always, I’d love to hear from you.