Dell Inspiron to Samsung LCD TV

My wife is a photographer and she wants to do her editing and post-processing using our 46" Samsung LCD. She works on an INspiron 1720. The lappie has a VGA out port and the TV has a VGA in port.

Will any 15pin male/male VGA cable do the job? DOes it need to be filtered or High Quality? What about the different colour formats (RGB v. YUL) I have read about? This will only be for still images - ie no video.

P.S. It will need to be a 5m/16ft cable to allow her to connect from the couch to the TV.

Thanks

 

Unless you're working with DVI or HDMI the output will look awful. VGA out to a TV will not produce good colors or sharpness.

 

NO, I wouldn’t call it awful.

You can still go up to the maximum resolution of the TV which is 1920x1080 (for full HD), and it will look pretty good. DVI or HDMI is better than VGA because there is no signal attenuation or interference, therefore the image will be sharper. But don't under estimate VGA quality.

yes, but don't buy the cheapest cable you can find, because cheaper cables are not properly shielded. With a decent cable you should see some good results.

 

I use VGA-out to my Samsung LCD TV, and it looks great!
Good sharpness, without a doubt. Colors aren't a problem either.
I think you're meaning composit or s-video!? Those have awful color and overall quality, sharpness sucks hard, can't even read what it says anywhere.




Anyhow, any vga-cable will work just fine. Some samsungs may lack the abillity to notice that a notebook is connected while it's on. So if you have a problem with that, it's not uncommon

 

Thanks to all for your answers.

Would S-Video be better (or even viable)?

 

NO, S-Video only support standard definition 480i (720x480) which is a very low resolution to use as a computer monitor. VGA is your best option.

 

Well i connected the laptop to the Samsung and changed Source on Samsung to PC - it switched and seemed to know there was a computer connected but the screen was black. The laptop definitely switched to external display (res changed).

So what is wrong?

 

So, you have the Samsung LCD TV set at PC-input? And you have the laptop running and it switches automatically to the TV not leaving any picture on the laptop? But the picture doesn't come up on the TV, do i understand you correct here?


Try this: disconnect the VGA-cable, start the laptop, when you're in windows, connect the VGA-cable, go to screen resolution options, where you can set tv-out and extend the display, turn the extended display on (dual view on nvidia) and see if that works, then work your way like you want it, if you want it as primary or only screen etc.

Otherwise fn+f7 or f8 could do the trick, depending on where you function key for tv-out is.