Which cable to connect laptop to CRT TV

Big Chris · 30 May 2011 at 15:00

I'm rubbish at AV stuff so hoping you knowledgeable chaps can advise here

My little Bro has a laptop with a VGA out and is hoping to connect to his Sony CRT TV which only has Scart and (I think) component inputs. I say I think they're component, it has a red, a white and a yellow input which he uses to connect his XBox at present.

Does such a cable exist, allowing him to view his laptop screen on the TV?

Schizo · 30 May 2011 at 15:05

yes a vga to scart does exist.

cant give you a link but just google "vga to scart lead".

will cost you about £2.30 for a metre one.

Gammawolf · 30 May 2011 at 15:16

I was under the impression it was touch and go weather or not the video device supports this type of conversion?

Schizo · 30 May 2011 at 15:24

worth a punt for £2.30

Big Chris · 30 May 2011 at 15:49

Would VGA to Scart be better than VGA to component?

Audigex · 30 May 2011 at 15:52

Component is more likely to work, and theoretically better picture quality (although you're unlikely to notice)

Big Chris · 30 May 2011 at 16:03

Am I right in thinking the red, white and yellow inputs on his TV are component? Don't want to get him the wrong thing!

Ezah · 30 May 2011 at 17:16

component connections are blue/green/red
Phono are red/white/yellow(video)

So go for a VGA to Phono, if the TV has that input, otherwise VGA to Scart.

careful though, some scart cables are uni-directional.

edit: doh, disregard that, as correctly mentioned below VGA is video only. So you would need to take audio from the laptops headphone jack with a headphone -> phono cable.

what was I thinking /facepalm

shuzzbutt · 30 May 2011 at 17:16

Big Chris said:
Am I right in thinking the red, white and yellow inputs on his TV are component? Don't want to get him the wrong thing!

no, red white & yellow are composite inputs and offer the worst picture quality.

Also bear in mind vga will only carry picture so a vga to scart converter alone is not enough- you will also need to get audio from your laptops line out or headphone socket to the tv. Some sony tv's accept an s-video input on the 2nd scart, if it does, you could check wether your laptop has an s-video output then get a 3.5mm jack to 2 rca cable and plug those into a scart adapter into the tv.

BinnsY · 30 May 2011 at 18:03

As a word of warning the picture quality will be pretty rubbish no matter what cable you use.

Tealc · 30 May 2011 at 18:19

BinnsY said:
As a word of warning the picture quality will be pretty rubbish no matter what cable you use.

Absolutely this.

CRT TVs have terribly low resolution compared with even a laptop. It's also possible that the laptop wont even support a video mode the TV can use.

whitecrook · 30 May 2011 at 18:25

Scart is a connector, not a video standard like component or composite.

If it is fully wired it can handle rgb, composite, s video, and stereo audio as standard both in and out.
Some variants have component via scart but this is rare.

It is highly unlikely your tv will have a high enough horiontal sync to handle a vga signal . no matter how you feed it into the tv.

Youll need more than an adapter, itll need to be a convertor which are not cheap

Meatball · 30 May 2011 at 19:16

Connecting computers to CRT TVs is more hassle than it's worth and the results will ALWAYS be poor. He's MUCH better off investing in an HD telly with HDMI or VGA input

.

Big Chris · 30 May 2011 at 19:51

Ok cheers for the info guys, much appreciated. I think I'll advise he waits until he can afford a new TV (pretty much never since he's just out of Uni and struggling to eat let alone buy toys!)