Watching internet TV and video files from your computer on your TV

Sometimes its a pain watching the latest movies or your favorite tv shows on your 12 inch laptop screen. Sometimes you want that big screen effect. And also the sound systems on PC’s are pretty lame compared to the high end TV surround sound setups.

Well dont worry, you dont have to watch your tv, movie streams or downloaded video on your pc screen. You can hook up your computer to a television and watch the video streams with that movie style big screen effect.

So what you need to do is run a cable from the TV outport on your pc. Look at the back of your PC or sometimes down the side of your laptop or notebook for a S-Video port, pictured on the right. (If your PC doesnt have one the you may need to purchase a video cards with an S-Video port.

These are commonly available for well under $100.) Next, check your TV inputs. Most TV’s have an S-Video port in which case you will need a S-Video to S-Video cable. If it doesnt then a S-Video to RCA cable or S-Video to Scart will work. Connect the computer to the television with the cable.

With some PC’s you can right click your mouse on the desktop screen, highlight the ‘Settings’ tab, you will then see a grayed out monitor to the right hand side if you have S-video output.

Click on the grayed out monitor and check the ‘Extend Windows desktop onto this monitor’ and your done! If you now scroll off your mouse pointer to the right, the mouse will show up on the Television screen. Then start up your Media Player and drag it across to the right onto your TV screen. Sound will still be routed thro your PC speakers, but you can watch it in big screen.

For the sound It is pretty simple to get stereo to play by using a stereo to RCA cable or a Y jack.

These are pretty cheap to buy (approx 4.99 @ radioshack) If you’re PC has 5.1 sound then you can use 3 of these cables to plug into your Home Theatre 5.1 system. But make sure that the stereo head is male and RCA jacks are the female variety

You will find that most notebooks and laptops now have a function key that changes the video output options. Its pretty simple and if you press the function key ( normally labelled Fn ) and then press the Fkey with a computer icon next to a TV or it may be signified by CRT/LCD. Anyways when you find it just keep pressing and it will cycle between dual s-video and laptop output, press it a second time and it outputs via the s-video, it will then cycle back to laptop output. This makes changing output very easy peasy.