Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Technical help - is there a gizmo that converts a tv into a monitor?

Goodness Gracious Meme

19:15 / 05.09.02

I know that you can get something that allows a monitor to work as a telly? what about other way round? basically i have a laptop now with a broken screen and struck me it'd be much neater to be able to plug it into my telly rather than having to have another screen cluttering up my flat... is this a possibility?

solid~liquid onwards

19:29 / 05.09.02

yup, you get tv-out thingies on some laptops...on desktops youcan just get a cable that goes from the one your monitor goes into, into the tv

im no expert on such things...just throwing in my penny

Persephone

19:29 / 05.09.02

Husb says yes --may depend on the video card you have in your present laptop. If that's up to it, then you just need a connecter --which he says is called a "dongle," but I am not entirely convinced that he's not pulling my leg about that...

Stone Mirror

20:17 / 05.09.02

It is possible, modulo the capabilities of your particular video card, but the image is much crappier than a real monitor...

Trijhaos

20:36 / 05.09.02

It's ok for watching movies or playing games, but reading text for any length of time will be murder on your eyes. I'd just get the monitor replaced.

Re-Set

20:39 / 05.09.02

For the record, a "dongle" is a hardware lock, something that attaches to a port that enables you to run a specific software...so named, and I'm not kiiding, for the developer, Don Gaul.

w1rebaby

20:43 / 05.09.02

My desktop has a TV-out, but I'd concur that it's hard on the eyes. Unless you've got a particularly good TV, it's not worth it, they don't have the resolution.

If you have a TV card, it's better to just watch TV on your monitor, rather than use a TV as a monitor... I've watched DVDs and TV on my monitor, works fine. Plus, you can screen grab from TV channels and use for whatever purposes you like.

doglikesparky

21:11 / 05.09.02

Whilst another screen cluttering up your flat may well be an annoyance, if you're looking to read text this is the way to go. As has been said reading text on a telly is anightmare and will just serve to give you headaches and possibly break your eyes.
You can get second hand monitors dirt cheap if you have a look around. Besides, unless your laptop is pretty new and full of bells and whistles, chances are it won't have a TV Out connection and graphics cards that do have this function cost a lot for laptops. More than a cheap second hand monitor at any rate.

Spatula Clarke

22:45 / 05.09.02

Actually, if you want to get a nice clear picture you should buy a whojammit junction box to plug your dongle into. If you then connect this up to a whajamacallit interface or a doobrey, your TV screen will have the resolution of a top-notch monitor - otherwise known as a thingamubob.

Spatula Clarke

22:47 / 05.09.02

Which, interestingly enough, is named for its inventor, one Bob Thingamu.

Re-Set

14:17 / 06.09.02

Not to be nit-picky, E. Randy, but it was two Bob Thingamu, one Bob Thingamu didn't make it past the cloning experiment.

netbanshee

14:39 / 06.09.02

just to piggy-back what most people have said...a good tv is generally the only way to go if you're going to go with the video out function. The resolution isn't as good as a monitor and tv's have rectangular pixels while a monitor's are square. You'll notice it if you watch a video on an lcd and then switch to a tv...there's about 2-5% of the screen real estate that is up fo grabs. But video out, especially using an s-video connection usually displays well on a broadcast set.

And another tip, more monitor's are better. Some video cards are supporting duel monitors in one card. I have a 19" and a 15" on my mac so I can use both concurrently. Good for putting all of the palettes on the small one leaving the whole screen of the big one for the image, etc. They're a pretty cheap investment.

Add Your Reply