External VGA adapter

[Jim]

Is there such a thing as an external VGA to TV adapter? So someone with
a laptop could play their video on the much larger home television instead?

 

[Simon Berube]

Yes, there are such adapters. It's possible that there isn't a simple
adapter made for your specific setup. If your laptop has DVI and your large
TV has a free HDMI input, then you're in luck
(http://www.cableclub.com/advanced_s...ords=dvi+adapter+hdtv&search_in_description=1).
If your laptop only has VGA like you said, you still have options, but you
may have to mix and match adapters and hope it works.
http://www.cableclub.com/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=vga+adapter&search_in_description=1.
I've bought a VGA to DVI adapter from them in the past. They seem to still
have good prices. I'm pretty sure you'll find a solution there.

Oh. Don't expect to get high resolutions on your TV. You'll have limits
depending on what your cables and TV support.

 

[Paul]

Is there such a thing as an external VGA to TV adapter? So someone with
a laptop could play their video on the much larger home television instead?

There are things called "Scan Converters". They convert VGA, up to
a certain resolution, to drive a TV. There are a number of ways to
get to a TV set, and the composite video cable only offers about
4MHz of bandwidth, which is not enough to make text clear on the
screen. There may be other ways of getting to a TV type device,
that give better bandwidth, and make more ambitious displays possible.
(For example, when I boot FreeBSD, and try to view the boot screen
on a TV set, I cannot tell what is happening, as the text is unreadable.)

http://aver.com/ppd/averkey.html

The best way to do it, is if the laptop already has an output in a
TV format, as that allows the graphics chip to do as much as possible
to give a good quality signal. Scan conversion, being a two step
process, has more difficulty doing this job. Still, we used to use
a scan converter at work, for driving a projection display, and while
the display was quite washed out looking, we were able to use it
for Powerpoint presentations.

More info here:
http://www.extron.com/company/article.aspx?id=scancon

As TVs get more expensive, they have more input options. In which case,
you may be able to connect the laptop directly to the TV. A more capable
TV, may be a cheaper and better alternative, than a high end scan converter.

Paul

 

[Eric]

Is there such a thing as an external VGA to TV adapter? So someone with
a laptop could play their video on the much larger home television
instead?

Yes, but I don't think you are going to like the cost of these do-all
converters.

It is cheaper, and more practical, to just get a video card that has TV out.

....but, you are talking about a laptop, so a new video card isn't an option.

In which case, since you are just talking about playing videos on a TV, you
may want to look at just a simple VGA-SVideo cable.

You aren't going to be able to do desktop things with it, but 480i video
should be "okay" enough to watch.

It'll cost you less than $10.

External converters to convert VGA to anything more presentable for a (HD)TV
are going to cost you a fraction of a new laptop that does have TV out...

 

[Frank McCoy]

Yes, but I don't think you are going to like the cost of these do-all
converters.

It is cheaper, and more practical, to just get a video card that has TV out.

Especially if your TV has HDTV inputs and the video-card (Like many ATI
cards) has the option of HDTV output. Then you get a decent resolution,
instead of the crappy SDTV shit.