Today the wealth of content available online seems to want to bust out of our small computer screens at times; between TV and Movies, Games and Social Media, to News and Information, the internet is your one shop stop for all your media needs. If you want to get more from your internet experience, you can connect your laptop to a modern HDTV easily, providing a larger, better picture and a tremendous increase in sound quality.
This article will walk you through the process of identifying which items you'll need and which you may want to consider, as well as how to hook it up.
So you want to use your Television to access the full, unbridled web (via your laptop computer), first check out the features and instructions for your TV, some are already "internet enabled", and may already be able to provide the features you're looking for with the addition of some peripherals.
If you don't have an "internet TV", or you would like the same unbridled experience your laptop computer provides, you can connect your laptop to your TV with one or two simple cords.
The first thing you need to do is determine what kind of input/output ports are available on your devices. The best options for image quality are HDMI and VGA, HDMI also provides sound so there is no need for a separate cord for that. With VGA you will get a decent video signal, but you will also need a 3.5mm stereo cable, with one input and two outputs (usually red and white). To verify if you have the proper ports simple do a Google search for "HDMI Port", you should be able to find some images that show what the ports looks like so you can identify whether they are on your devices. If you do have HDMI on both your laptop and TV, you are in luck, All you need to do is purchase an HDMI cable, which can be found on amazon.com for under $15.00, connect the cable to both devices, check the TV's input settings and your off to the races. You may need to check your computers display and sound settings (found in control panel on PC, system settings for Mac), adjust these until you are satisfied.
If you don't have an HDMI port on either your TV or laptop computer you can do a Google search again, this time for "VGA port", this is a multi pin port that you may be familiar with, as most desktop monitors connect this way. Your TV may also have a VGA port, in which case you can get a VGA-to-VGA cable, if not, you will need a cord that converts VGA to the standard RCA video connection (yellow on the yellow/red/white inputs). VGA doesn't transmit sound, so you will need to get a 3.5mm stereo out-to-RCA sound cable as well, Again, you can obtain these cords on amazon.com for less than $15 each.
Connecting a laptop and TV via VGA isn't as straight forward as with HDMI, but the process is still simple enough. This time before you connect the cables make sure your laptop is off, and your TV is on and set to the right input. Connect the cables and boot up your laptop, the TV should be working as your screen now, if not you will need to check your display settings.
That's it, there are other inputs and options available to connect your computer to your TV, but HDMI and VGA are two of the cheapest, easiest, most widely available options, and the picture/sound quality is unrivaled. Now that your up and running, you may have noticed your laptop has become somewhat less mobile with all these cords sticking out of it. Thankfully, there is a solution for this too, you will need to obtain a wireless keyboard/mouse combo, which can be found for under $30, you have a lot of options here though, with more portable peripherals geared specifically towards this situation. such as the Lenovo Multimedia Remote, or Logitech K400 mini keyboard with built-in touchpad.
So there you have, for $15-100, you can turn your TV into a dynamic media center for your home or office. I Hope you found this article helpful and that you'll visit my site: http://internetentv.co for further resources on bridging your media devices.
About the Author:
Jeremy Plack is Web Designer/Developer, writer, and technologist. he provides resources on bridging media across devices on his website: internetentv.co
For Web Design, Consulting and writing please visit: St. Louis Web Services
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