Comments on: Finding The Right Cables To Connect Laptop to TV

By: angela

angela — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 21:07:06 +0000

Thanks very much for the good info on the HDMI cables! Very handy to know as I look into connecting the laptop to the HD TV
I pitched the bundled package over a year ago when they wanted to up the package fee after the year introductory rate and no regrets. I couldn’t go back to cable package because the reception had been soooo poor. My one big remaining expense is the dsl line at $60/mo. But, I can make 911 calls from it and it can receive incoming calls.
I switched to a Netflix package which was fine, but will put that account on hold at the end of the month when the price increase goes into effect, check out hulu+ and wait to see if the streaming netflix library selection improves substantially with that price increase.
Cell phone I pitched Verizon $180/mo plan (heavy smartphone usage is a necessary part of my job) and went with LG Optimus V Droid unlimited data $40/mo no contract Virgin Mobile, which phone I subsequently rooted which resulted in greatly improved performance and boosted memory after a couple of simple tweaks.
As an aside, for anyone with tablets, Virgin also sells aircards and mifis, and you can then purchase data at will, no monthly fees.
As an alternative to the landline, I went with a Skype phone number (under $50 for the year) and an IPEVO internet phone (one time purchase $100 on eBay), which initial investment paid for itself after 3 months.
To boost the range of the dsl router I took the old router and set it up as a repeater and invested about $10 for 100′ of dsl cable from a seller on Amazon so I can now use pretty much everything at the farthest reaches of the yard, so I can enjoy some sunshine too during the summer months
Hope the info is helpful.

By: Jackie Smith

Jackie Smith — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 14:36:17 +0000

I read somewhere that if you want to going from DVI to HDMI you do not need a separate audio cable! It is true?

By: CJ

CJ — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:26:54 +0000

For all those asking about DVI from your Macbook (or other), NO IT WILL NOT CARRY SOUND. But, you can buy (very cheaply) a single cable that you can run from your Mac’s headphone output jack to you TV/Stereo receiver for the audio. I found a cable that ran from my Macbook’s headphone output and split it into the Left and Right Channel inputs of my receiver.

Works great! Not to mention if you have the application “Remote” on your iPhone, you can then control your Macbook’s iTunes list from anywhere in your house where you have a wi-fi signal. This is awesome when I’m doing chores around the house and want to change the song playing over my stereo. Just take the iPhone out of my pocket and wha-la, my whole playlist at my fingertips.

I also bought a very long DVI>HDMI cable for the Macbook, and have yet to see any video degredation on my silly 52′ Samsung flat screen.

By: Shawn

Shawn — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:40:53 +0000

Thanks for this really helpful post! I just bought my cable to hook my mac up to my tv!

By: Methuselah

Methuselah — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:29:01 +0000

I used Hulu.com until they made it impossible to buffer their stream. Since I don’t like “stuttering” signals, I now get my content elsewhere. It’s too bad. However, buffering the whole show into my laptop first allowed trouble-free playback. Now, I can’t go back.

By: Evan

Evan — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:37:52 +0000

I can’t be the only one thinking it but there are also a ton of other sites of questionable legality that are also GREAT

By: Micheal

Micheal — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:30:31 +0000

Like Randy above, what are most people’s plan when they ditch cable concerning internet access? I’m in no way beyond the city limits but it seems that AT&T isn’t avaliable and thats the only option besides the unbundled cable package and satellite internet. Has anyone just bit the bullet and say screw it all and leach free internet access throughout town (cafe’s, library, sandwich shops)?

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:06:10 +0000

Great post. A warning about OVGUIDE. It has a lot of illegal stuff on there. I wouldn’t play around with it and instead stick to HULU and FANCAST. They are sanctioned by the MPAA.

By: David

David — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 04:09:50 +0000

You can turn your laptop (or desktop) into an OTA HD DVR with a $10 digital antenna like the RCA ANT111 and a $50-$100 TV tuner card (I go with Hauppauge). The Windows MCE/Vista/7 Media Center is great for recording OTA TV. It’s also great for streaming recorded and live TV to a networked Xbox 360. Check antennaweb.org for your local networks.

I can’t drop my satellite subscription as sports are too important to me, but all the football I watch comes in through the antenna.

By: Randy

Randy — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:34:19 +0000

If you ditch Comcast, what’s your plan for the internet connection? Suck it up and pay them the unbundled $60/month for a standalone internet connection?

When my wife and I simplified our utilities, we settled on a $5/month landline and the slowest $20/month DSL service from AT&T. Anything substantially faster gets expensive again and the point of the exercise was to reduce monthly expenses.

By: debbie

debbie — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 14:47:39 +0000

I’ve never had cable in my lifetime, which is probably why I’m pretty amenable to using my laptop as a cable replacement. Luckily, my Dell came with an HDMI port, so hooking it up to my flatscreen was relatively painless (one cord, woohoo!)

For my parent’s laptop, she uses a VGA cord for the visuals (try to use it if your TV has a VGA connection, because its better than S Video) and just uses a 3mm (I think? just the basic headphone jack cord) to connect the sound to our TV, which has a sound jack port to go along with the VGA.

And our cords are 10-15 ft long, and I haven’t really noticed anything in terms of quality problems. The only thing that does bother me is that my dell will sometimes overheat, but that might just be because I am using a dell

Total price of the cords + shipping on monoprice? 12.00. Not too shabby!

By: Eric

Eric — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 07:46:59 +0000

Thanks for the reply Jonathan!

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 05:30:25 +0000

@Eric – Yes. DVI standard only carries video data.

By: Eric

Eric — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 04:40:30 +0000

Uuu nice post!

So if you’re going from DVI to HDMI….do you need a separate audio cable?

By: Kuzbad

Kuzbad — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 01:13:08 +0000

My MBP doesn’t do audio+video over DVI->HDMI, but it’s possible that newer models support this (I have no reason to suspect this, just saying I can’t definitely rule it out)

Versus video, audio is easier. You have a Microphone jack->RCA audio cord (found at any store that carries wires) or an optical cable (SPDIF/toslink). Few if any computers I’ve seen use coaxial for audio, but some do. (Macbook pro audio jack is both a microphone jack and a mini-optical jack)

With regards to using TVs, some tvs do have optical audio inputs, but the microphone jack->rca is pretty universal.

By: FrugalHomeAV

FrugalHomeAV — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 22:39:54 +0000

If you want the best price on cable you have to check out http://www.riteav.com. Their prices beat everyone I’ve found so far. Check out my comparison at http://www.frugalhomeav.com/fr.....ter-cables and you can also see my other posts on how to have an excellent A/V system while being frugal.

By: Nasty N8

Nasty N8 — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 22:26:40 +0000

@Frankie -

I know HDMI will do audio, but that means my MacBook Pro laptop would have to be sending the audio data through the DVI port and I’m thinking (though I haven’t done any tests or done the mandatory google search to verify if this is true or not) that the Mac just sends video output through the DVI since the principal purpose of that port is to connect an external monitor, not a TV.

If anybody has evidence to show that an HDMI cable from a Mac laptop will indeed carry sound too, that would be valuable info!

By: Frankie

Frankie — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:56:18 +0000

Nasty Nate, HDMI does audio too, so if you can get into the hotel TV’s HDMI input you can use the TV’s speakers.

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:02:32 +0000

I use a 7′ DVI to HDMI cable for my computer to TV connection. It works great. Its a $7 cable I bought on Newegg and it works great.

Definitely go with a digital signal if you can, you should get a get better picture that way. If you have a choice I’d prioritize this way: 1) HDMI, 2) DVI, 3) component , 4) VGA 5) s-video 6) RCA. (I’m not a super expert on this so someone correct me if I’m wrong).

By: techjosh

techjosh — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:54:05 +0000

My setup is pretty nifty… I have the PlayOn media server running on my PC and it allows me to stream videos from Hulu, CBS, and several other major tv stations to my Xbox 360 (or PS3 for you sony fans). So I can use my xbox remote to select what I want to watch and I don’t have to have a “PC” in the living room. On the other hand I can’t play pc games on the “big screen” but I don’t generally play games on my pc anyways.

By: klein3351f

klein3351f — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:15:04 +0000

Keep in mind the length of your cables matters with HDMI. Anything 6 feet or less and the quality shouldn’t matter. Some say even up to 10 feet and you’ll be fine. Anything over 10 feet and you should like for the highest quality you can find.

Personally I have used a 10 foot cable that I bought for $14.99 on Amazon and have found that the color and sometimes audio quality suffer greatly from the HDMI out on my laptop to the HDMI in on my tv. It has gotten to the point where I just watch internet stuff on my PC for the most part.

By: melange

melange — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:07:24 +0000

great topic!

don’t forget the other low-cost cable/satellite alternative helpers: netflix watch it now, amazon on demand, and over the air digital tv w/ DVR.

one such DVR for OTA DTV that does not charge a monthly fee is the DTVPal from dish (tivo costs $$ per month or a one lifetime fee). you can read about it at avsforum:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb.....?t=1099071

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:40:06 +0000

I recently tried to totally replace cable with getting all of my content online. I had a Mac Mini hooked up to an LCD and bought a wireless keyboard that had a “mouse pad” on it. It worked pretty well, but I will warn you:

You CAN cancel cable and try to go all online, but will you WANT to? We recently signed up for cable again, and I can honestly say I have no regrets about doing that. Trying to watch everything online, if it was even available online (in most cases, it was) just became too much of a hassle. It depends on how much TV you watch. We don’t watch that much, and it still became a little bit of a hassle to try and get everything online.

That said, I am glad we gave it a shot. Ten years from now (if that long), I believe the TV/Online/Video landscape will be totally different and watching things online will be much more user-friendly. For me, its not quite there yet.

By: Jayne

Jayne — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:11:28 +0000

We got rid of our digital cable and use Boxee (http://www.boxee.tv/) which makes watching online content on the TV much more pleasant. It also includes Netflix streaming which we use quite a bit. With the ethernet going directly into our Mac Mini it’s super fast and doesn’t lag at all.

By: Bobby

Bobby — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:03:46 +0000

You can also stream digital content from your computer to your TV wirelessly using devices like the DivX Connected box. Your home pc is definitely on the way to becoming your primary video server.