Another way to enjoy movies (AVI, MPEG, DivX) on your TV

There are DVD players nowadays that let you play DivX, AVI, and MPEG movies through a USB key or recorded DVD. An example of such a player is Philips DVP5982 1080p Upscaling DVD Player available on Amazon for $65, not to mention that it has the ability to up-convert the video signal to 720p, 1080i, or 1080p delivering a clear and quality picture (this requires a HDMI cable). This setup allows you to download movies (legally of course), copying them to a USB key, plugging it into the DVD player, and presto, you are watching them on your TV.

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Watching a movie from your laptop on your TV

I bought a new laptop in 2007 equipped with S-Video, audio connectors, DVD player and wondered to myself, instead of watching a movie on my laptop, is it possible to watch it on my TV instead. After a bit of research, I found out that it is definitely doable but not entirely trivial. This is also a great way to watch movies from Amazon Unbox or Netflix on your TV although I found their instructions on how to do so dismal.

This is what S-Video connector on my laptop looks like (sorry for the poor quality), it is the far left round connector

This is what my TV front panel with the S-Video, composite video (yellow) and audio connectors (white, red) look like

To connect the laptop to the TV, I bought a S-Video and audio cable (12 or 15ft) from Walgreens for less than $20. Here’s a pic of the cable

One end of the cable plugs into the TV, here’s a closeup pic of it

Here’s what it looks like plugged into the TV front panel

Closeup pic of the other end of the cable that plugs into the laptop

Since the laptop has only 1 audio output connector and the TV has 2 (left and right), I have to purchase a Y-connector (I got it at Radio Shack for $5) splitting the laptop audio output into left and right channels.

Here’s what it looks like plugged into the laptop

Now that the cable is connected to both the TV and laptop, turn on your TV and switch the input channel to the S-Video channel.

The following instructions are for Windows XP (see picture below for screenshot)

• Right click on the desktop and open up Properties
• Click on the Settings tab
• Click on monitor 2 (the square on the right)
• Check “Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor”
• Click “Ok” or “Apply”

You should now see your desktop on the TV screen! If you don’t see it, there is something wrong. Make sure you go back through all the steps above and follow them.

At this point, you can launch a movie using any number of media players like Windows Media Player or in my case VideoLan VLC media player, it’s free. Once you launch the movie, you can drag the player all the way right past your laptop desktop onto the TV screen. Maximize the player and it will take up the whole TV screen. Click Play and enjoy the movie on your TV.

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Unless stated otherwise, I am not affiliated with products, companies, or services referred to in my blogs.