Laptop to TV

[Pete Nice]

i have all monster cables, even for my car stereo

Do you wipe your ass with $20 bills also, b/c that is the same thing as buying Monster cables.

[Derick]

i have all monster cables, even for my car stereo

Do you wipe your ass with $20 bills also, b/c that is the same thing as buying Monster cables.

I used to before I knew. I havent purchased cables in years.

[Joe]

The monster company is about as douchey as a company can be. Just search online for the tons of lawsuits they've filed against companies that have Monster in their names.

[Pokes28]

Pete,

I have a couple questions before I give you some ideas. Is this for use at your home or is this so you can go to a hotel and watch what you have on your laptop?

If it is for your home, just use TVersity and the media player on your xbox 360 (PS3 can do the same thing. The Wii can but it sucks).

If it is for traveling, look at EVGA UV Plus. This will take a USB port and turn it into a VGA/HDMI type port. You can set it to make the multiple displays clones or extended screens. Works damn well. The sound could get tricky though if that is a problem.

[Pete Nice]

What is this Tversity you speak of?

That all was a little deep for me, might have to look into it.

Have any links Pokes?

[Pokes28]

<!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.tversity.com">www.tversity.com</a><!-- w -->

Here is what I do. I go online and pull torrents (in avi format). Then I run TVersity on my computer then go to the xbox and go to my videos and then I see the shared (with TVersity) files to play.

Here is a guide that should work even though it is a bit dated now.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/stream_video_xbox_360_tversity.cfm">http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive ... ersity.cfm</a><!-- m -->

[Chip]

What I've done is, I've put all my DVD's, and downloaded movies on a 1.5TB hard drive, dedicated to movies. I have about 150 movies on it now, thinking I should get another hard drive to back them up. And I have that shared over my network. Then at my LCD and plasma, I have an older, cheaper computers hooked up and use Windows Media Center to play the movies.

It's pretty sweet. XBMC is another option, and it's free if your version of Windows doesn't have MC. I have U-verse and there's a network port on the back of all the cable boxes, so I can just hook the computer up right through that. But even wireless is fast enough to play the movies.

[Pokes28]

I've done exactly that using other PCs and such but the TVersity and the media center on the 360 is so easy and the quality is really good. Less moving parts.

Plus it seems to be more torrent friendly.

[Chip]

I've done exactly that using other PCs and such but the TVersity and the media center on the 360 is so easy and the quality is really good. Less moving parts.

Plus it seems to be more torrent friendly.

It's awesome.
It replaces an entire wall of DVDs.
This just came in the mail today, I got it for the computer in my room.
http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Multimedia-...B0036VO67I
$36 shipped right from Lenovo.

[Pete Nice]

OK, this is driving me crazy.

I got a VGA cable with audio. Ran it from the laptop directly into the TV. The TV manual even says, hook the VGA to laptop and WALLA, big monitor.

But it's not working. Still says no signal on TV. It's hooked up properly, I turn it to the PC input on the TV, nothing.

Do I need to change a setting on the TV? I activated the 2nd monitor under Display Porperties - setting - clicked extend my windows desktop to this monitor.

I am going to break something soon.

:Flaming: :Flaming: :Flaming:

[Chip]

OK, this is driving me crazy.

I got a VGA cable with audio. Ran it from the laptop directly into the TV. The TV manual even says, hook the VGA to laptop and WALLA, big monitor.

But it's not working. Still says no signal on TV. It's hooked up properly, I turn it to the PC input on the TV, nothing.

Do I need to change a setting on the TV? I activated the 2nd monitor under Display Porperties - setting - clicked extend my windows desktop to this monitor.

I am going to break something soon.

:Flaming: :Flaming: :Flaming:

Huh.
That seems like you've done everything right.
You're using a regular VGA cable?
Sorry, I've got nothing, I don't know what the problem could be.

[Jersey_Mike]

Pete, activating a second monitor should do the trick. What kind of tv is it? It may be a resolution issue on the PC.


As for the cable argument I work for an A/V company and swear by Monster for non-HDMI cables. If you have a taste for sound, either in your car or in your house I would definetly recommend monster speaker wire.

One quick point on HDMI cables. There are different quality versions of HDMI cables. The $6 cable you see on Ebay are most often not the most recent version. The newer versions have a faster clock speed (speed in which information travels), and are capable of carrying a higher resolution. The newest version (v1.4) also has an Ethernet Channel built into it for connecting multiple devices to the internet. It also is needed if you want to use 3D capable devises.

That being said you can get a high quality HDMI cable for well under what Monster charges.

[Pete Nice]

Pete, activating a second monitor should do the trick. What kind of tv is it? It may be a resolution issue on the PC.


As for the cable argument I work for an A/V company and swear by Monster for non-HDMI cables. If you have a taste for sound, either in your car or in your house I would definetly recommend monster speaker wire.

One quick point on HDMI cables. There are different quality versions of HDMI cables. The $6 cable you see on Ebay are most often not the most recent version. The newer versions have a faster clock speed (speed in which information travels), and are capable of carrying a higher resolution. The newest version (v1.4) also has an Ethernet Channel built into it for connecting multiple devices to the internet. It also is needed if you want to use 3D capable devises.

That being said you can get a high quality HDMI cable for well under what Monster charges.

It's an LG, 1080 HD.

[Chip]

I thought about the resolution thing, but I thought instead of "no signal" it would say something like "format not supported". And Windows 7, and maybe even the most updated video drivers on XP, should detect the supported resolutions and automatically set it. For the computer image to fit on the screen right it won't be exactly 1920x1080, but it'll be something really close to it. Did you try changing that? TV's are really limited in the resolutions they support, it'll be in the manual.

[Pete Nice]

What I've done is, I've put all my DVD's, and downloaded movies on a 1.5TB hard drive, dedicated to movies. I have about 150 movies on it now, thinking I should get another hard drive to back them up. And I have that shared over my network. Then at my LCD and plasma, I have an older, cheaper computers hooked up and use Windows Media Center to play the movies.

It's pretty sweet. XBMC is another option, and it's free if your version of Windows doesn't have MC. I have U-verse and there's a network port on the back of all the cable boxes, so I can just hook the computer up right through that. But even wireless is fast enough to play the movies.

Question: How did you put your DVD's on the external? What program did you use? DVD into CDROM, then what?