Experience and enjoy the media of your digital devices on big display by connecting them to your HDTV. There are lots of options to connect laptop, PC or other digital devices to HDTV and there are lots of benefits too on connecting your laptop to HDTV. By connecting your laptop to HDTV you can easily watch your videos, music and movies on big screen sideways you can work on your laptop, browsing web or having conversation with your friends. In other ways, it extends your working area as well by extending your display to two or more screens. However, connecting laptop to HDTV is mostly used for watching movies and media streaming from laptop, playing games and music while working on the laptop.
Each method of connecting laptop to HDTV has it’s pros and cons. Some methods prerequisite some hardware in the laptop, while in others you can connect with the help of external hardware. All in all there is a need to process display from laptop to HDTV. And, it’s a plus point if you have a latest laptop purchased recently, because now a days every laptop or notebook has plenty of options to extend display and connectivity with TV.
Here are the different ways you can utilize to connect your laptop to HDTV.
WIRED CONNECTION
HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface)
It is the preferred and easiest way to connect laptop to HDTV. Even some high end smartphones, tablets and digital cameras comes with HDMI output port. HDMI is best and mostly used for wired connection between digital devices and HDTVs now a days. HDMI can transmit visual as well audio content to HDTV. It requires an HDMI port on both laptop as well as HDTV and an HDMI cable of course. Using HDMI connection, you can mirror or extend the display of your laptop to your HDTV. All HDTVs has HDMI ports, but it is required on laptop or notebook. And if you have latest model of laptop or notebook then, there would be an HDMI port on it. Just hook one end of HDMI cable to your laptop while other to your HDTV and your laptop display automatically mirrored to HDTV which you can also extend from display settings from operating system if you want to display different screen on HDTV.
VGA (Video Graphic Array)
If you are not able to connect laptop to HDTV using HDMI, here’s a universal port called VGA port you can utilize to connect to HDTV. It is mainly used to extend the display area to work in a more efficient way. It doesn’t interface the audio from laptop to HDTV however, you can connect external speakers to laptop for sound in case of watching movies or playing games and is only the option in the absence of HDMI port, because mostly all laptops comes with VGA port on board. VGA provides analog connection so, only use if you have no other option to connect to HDTV.
DVI (Digital Visual Interface)
DVI supports digital interface between laptop and HDTV and can be another choice if your laptop doesn’t support HDMI connection. There are two types of DVI connection, DVI-D (supports digital connection) and DVI-I (supports both digital and analog connection). So you have to check whether your laptop video card support DVI-D or DVI-I connection.
In the above connections you need a connection cable or adapter to physically connect your laptop to HDTV and best suited for gaming and other HD content where lag in the two displays cause problems. So, wired connection is preferred in case of fast processing like in PC games.
WIRELESS CONNECTION
WiDi (Wireless Display)
If you purchased a new laptop then it would support wireless display technology in which you can connect laptop to HDTV without any wired connection between laptop and HDTV. It is suitable if don’t want to clutter around with connection wires and want to have a connection which allows you to sit any where in the room while watching movies on big display and working on the laptop itself.
WiDi technology is developed by Microsoft to stream media content like music, videos or movies to HDTVs. It can stream both visual as well audio to HDTV. For this, your laptop must be WiDi compatible and now a days almost every new laptop is compatible with WiDi due to improved WiDi technology. You can check requirements here. It connect laptop to HDTV using WiFi network. If your HDTV doesn’t support WiFi connection then still you can connect your laptop to HDTV using a WiDi adapter (pictured above) which have to be connected with HDTV.
Wireless HDMI
You can also utilize HDMI port in the laptop for wireless connection between laptop and HDTV without an HDMI cable by using a wireless HDMI kit. It utilizes a transmitter and receiver for audio and video connection. Transmitter has to be connected with laptop’s HDMI port while receiver with HDTV. Audio and video quality is just like wired HDMI connection but, still not ideal for gaming because of slight delay. Though it is more costlier than HDMI cable, but it’s a good choice if you want sound and picture quality and don’t want to clutter with HDMI cables in between laptop and HDTV.
DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance)
DLNA is an advanced digital media content sharing technology developed by SONY. It is a smart network of DLNA certified devices which allows you to share or stream digital media between different devices over a network. DLNA works on shared network i.e. laptop and HDTV must be on the same network. It can work on wired Ethernet network connection or WiFi network and you have to use WiFi network for wireless connection between laptop and HDTV. You can also use a router if your HDTV doesn’t support WiFi. And again, a slight delay prevents you to utilize it for gaming, however it is useful in music, videos and movies streaming. There’s lot more you can discover with DLNA by connecting multiple devices and not all devices are DLNA certified, you can check if your laptop is DLNA certified by DLNA logo before discovering digital living network alliance.
Chromecast
If you are an online junkie and browsing web, streaming music, videos and movies online, here is a plug and play device called Chromecast recently launched by Google to enjoy online entertainment on HDTV. It’s an HDMI adapter works on WiFi network. You can get more on Chromecast here.
Conclusion: If want to watch movies or any media content on your HDTV streaming from your laptop, then you can use any of the methods listed above but remember, each of these methods has it’s pros and cons, so check whether any one of the method fulfil your needs, e.g. you may need to stream media which require both audio and visuals to be interface with HDTV or you may only want display visuals to HDTV and sound to external speakers which you can directly connect with your laptop. So, it’s up to you how you want to connect because options are endless. On the other hand, if you want to play games and other quick response applications then wired connection is preferred first because of the delay in processing when using wireless connection which doesn’t affect much while streaming media content. So, choose the method you are more convenient with.
Connect, experience and enjoy.
Image: Wikipedia
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