Thinkpads Forum

I would like to be able to connect my T60 to my television for a number of reasons, but I haven't been able to track down a decent way of doing it yet.

The problem seems to be the limited number of ports available. S-video or firewire would probably each make it quite easy. But all I've got to work with are things like VGA, Express Card, PCMCIA, and I guess USB. Anyone come up with any workable solutions?

No solutions, but I too would like to hear one!

How about a VGA to component (HD) converter?

http://www.smarthome.com/777060.html

Another option would be VGA to S-Video, but the quality would be pretty bad - but it's CHEAP:

http://www.nextag.com/VGA-to-S-Video-54 ... rices-html

Note that most modern HD televisions have a VGA input, so you could go direct.

-Dane

There's basically nothing out there if I want to convert to composite video is there?

Phred wrote:There's basically nothing out there if I want to convert to composite video is there?

Sure there is. Here's one option that does both S-Video and composite:

http://cgi.ebay.com/PC-VGA-Monitor-Comp ... dZViewItem

$5. Whee.

It'll look AWFUL. You will not be able to read text that's normal sized. Don't expect much. NTSC composite video is somewhere around 480x300 - really, really poor.

S-Video is a little better, particularly with text readability because the signal is separated and it's a bit sharper. This will be usable, but not great.

More educational material here:

http://lyberty.com/encyc/articles/svideo.html

What you really want is component HD, VGA, or DVI - if the TV will take any of these. These area all digital formats, and they'll look good. The two analog formats (composite and S-Video) will not.

-Dane

With my T42, I have used an S-Video to composite adapter to connect to my TV. I recently bought a new 15" LCD TV, XGA resolution for about $150 US, that has a both a VGA input and an S-Video input. The video quality is much better using a VGA cable than with S-Video.

Well, my T42p has a VGA port... and my TV has a VGA port... so that makes it kinda simple for me.

Everything I have read about this issue via S-VIDEO, or VGA to component has been a failure. If you buy a converter box rather than one of these cables that utilize special pins in the VGA connector to break out the connection to the cable, then you might be able to do it. However, these converter boxes are often upwards of $150 or so. If you have an HDTV that accepts DVI or HDMI, the best bet might be to get the dock with DVI and use that connection.