Graphic By: Tim Tuley

How to Get That Video From
Your PC to Your TV
| Published 04/30/04

In my experience, S-Video is the easiest way to get that visual from the CPU to the television. Of course, your television will need S-Video capability and your CPU will have to have a S-Video port. You can do it with RCA but, since it is more complicated and I have never had experience with that, it will not be the focus of this writing. If you have the S-Video port, buy the cable and attach it from the CPU to the monitor.

Now S-Video only transfers video and not sound, so make sure that you have better speakers than those pitiful things on the laptop or those generic ones that came with your PC. The best option is having a receiver already attached to your computer and a Y-cable (which costs $3.00 at Wal-Mart). If you hook that Y-cable from the receiver to the speaker port on the laptop, you will be good to go with great sound.

Once everything is hooked up, you get into the most technically confusing part of the process. Right-click on your computer's desktop, and go to properties. In there click on settings, and then on advanced in the bottom right corner. Once the new screen comes up, click on the tab that has your graphics card properties on it, usually this has the name of your card or the company that makes it. As you are scanning about this screen, look for the device settings and click on select output device or something similar in language. From here, you tell the computer to transfer it to a television (on some laptops it will say monitor) and after applying the setting your screen on the laptop will go black, and then your TV screen will become your monitor (make sure the TV/Video control is opted to the right setting for video). Click on accept the settings, and just navigate as you would normally.

Now that you've figured that out, gather your friends, sit back and watch that program that you have been dying to show people. Enjoy.