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Hi,
I have a laptop which I want to connect to my 11 year old TV.
I have tried various cables without success.
I have read of connection 'boxes' from places like MAPLINS but the reviews of these devices are not best.
HELP PLEASE
Robert Loakes
I am afraid that your TV does not have a digital Video input.
So unless your laptop has an analog video output a conversion box is the only option.
Regards
Thanks for that.
Can you recommend a particular conversion box. As I said I have seen the MAPLINS one and the reviews were not that good
I do not know Maplins. Many of the "cheap" devices are made in china and are sold with different names. From Amazon in the pas I bought LIGAWO for HDMI splitter and they worked OK, but obviously the digital world is less affected by degradation. On analog signal the components used played a far more important role. If the "commercial" component are not OK, you should consider a professional one, but there I have no idea about what brand to suggest .
Is this or this the type of connection box you were thinking of? (I looked on Maplins and could not find one to convert HDMI to scart.). I also found this if your laptop has VGA output.
A lot depends on what you are trying to achieve by connecting your laptop to the TV.
No matter what type of cable or converter box actually works for you, you won't be able to use the CRT TV Screen as a PC screen because the TV is not capable of showing the PC desktop (windows) at a resolution that is easy to view. You get a very poor user experience and most standard fonts on windows are almost illegible on a CRT screen.
However, if you plan to use it as media centre, then providing you either use Windows Media Centre, or another media centre front-end (XBMC, Boxee, Plex to name a few) you will get a very usable experience from your TV.
The type of "connection box" that converts HDMI to scart or composite should do this to an acceptable standard for the media centres mentioned, but will not make the standard windows desktop any clearer on a CRT screen.
Hope that helps
Stoobie
PS can you give us the link to the Maplins one so we can be sure it is what you need and what the reviews say.