Thinkpads Forum

What is the easiest (and cheapest) reliable way to connect my thinkpad x200 to my tv?
Is it enough to get one of those VGA to svideo cables, or is more needed?
Advice will be appreciated!

Depends on what kind of input your TV has. A lot of LCD TV has vga input and all you need is a vga cable from your computer to the LCD TV.

Thank you VERY MUCH for responding, Bill !!!

I was beginning to get paranoid about the lack of any response to my question.

My TV has an RCA in as well as an s-video (that I prefer not to use because I use it to connect another device) input connectors. From some searches that I conducted about this I am under the impression that some laptops (that don't have the capability of so-called TV out) require some unique hardware/software support in addition to the physical connection of a cable. My question was whether that was the case for the x200 & its ultrabase. I can easily buy a cable to connects the VGA connector to the RCA but am wondering if a physical cable connection is all that is needed.
I would very much appreciate advice on this matter.

Direct cable connection (with a simple adapter) between VGA and RCA/SVIDEO is possible only if the RCA/SVIDEO signals have been routed to the VGA output by the manufacturer of the laptop's systemboard.

95% of the laptops don't have this feature. Usually when they do, they actively advertise it, and often provide adapters of their own as optional accessories.

To date, I have not seen a single Lenovo laptop that has RCA/SVIDEO routed to VGA. Therefore, as you noticed, you need some unique hardware in between your laptop and the TV for the trick.

The old standards of RCA/SVIDEO are slowly getting phased out. The quality they can provide is mediocre compared to new digital standards (DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort) and even the good-old analog VGA. Virtually now new laptop these days will support them, and the only reasons TVs continue to have them is for connecting old equipment (VCRs, DVD players, cable/satellite decoders, etc.)