OTish? TV to PC connections

[Mike.. . . .]

I'm hoping I can get up to speed quickly here with your help! I have new Sony Brevia HD TV with a "PC in" socket which looks like 15 pin VGA (F) which sony call "D sub 15", (this seems to be usually called "DE15 VGA"). SWMBO wants to be able to repeat PC screen on TV.

So I thought this will probably be easy, so looked at NVIDEA video card on PC and , yes, it has a second output socket. *But* both PC sockets look like three rows of 8. Is this a "DVI" socket or some other sort of VGA socket (or both)? I need to know what they are called to google for a connecting cable.

Thanks for any info.

[Adrian C]

[Mike.. . . .]

eventually found a webpage that confirmed the socket i'm looking at is called DVI on modern PCs "

"

[Man at B&Q]

DVI to VGA converters are readily available. Getting the sound to work is usually a bigger issue.

MBQ

[Lee]

DVI to HDMI cable and connect to the tv using an HDMI port. Don't bother with it's "PC" vga port.* Also remember that this will not normally carry audio to the tv. (some graphics cards will, but the standard is not to.)

*Most modern cards still carry analogue VGA which can be accessed using an adapter, but it's hardly a worthwhile exercise.

Lee

[Andy Burns]

passive dongle to give you a VGA 15 pin output ... You need to have the "Plus" shaped hole with 4 pins in the corners

[Timothy Murphy]

Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will reply, but it sounds to me like a VGA socket on the TV and a DVI socket on the computer. You can get VGA to DVI cables.

But there are almost certainly other sockets on the TV, in particular HDMI. There are HDMI to DVI connectors, but I'm not sure if that is certain to work. If it does it would probably be better than VGA to DVI. For one thing, I don't think VGA normally carries sound.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The old standard DB15 outputs an *analogue* video signal.

DVI and HDMI both output *digital* signals. You can get a DVI to HDMI (or the other way round) adaptor lead. Your new TV should have HDMI.

[Mike.. . . .]

point taken!

I've now find a diagram that proves the PC to be "DVI-D single link" Yes, TV has HDMI which I'm using for other inputs, I will ingore this odd (to me) "PC input" with its 15 pin socket and audio jack and try connecting the video card from its spare DVI-D to a spare HDMI socket via lead as suggested. Thanks for post, I am now a lot clearer!

[Mike.. . . .]

Yes, theres a audio input too, I cannot see why you would use the VGA (old PC?) so will go the HDMI route. Thanks!

[Mike.. . . .]

thanks again all.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

As has been said, DVI may also contain an analogue output but that's not always present.

If you are short of HDMI inputs on your TV it might be worth getting a new video card for your computer than includes a VGA output socket.

I'm not certain HDMI outputs from a computer includes the sound?

[Hugh - Was Invisible]

Our Bravia runs DVI to HDMI with a separate audio cable. You may need to adjust your PC screen resolution to work on the TV. I have one setting for PC only and a lower resolution setting for TV and PC. You will probably need to set up the PC for multiple monitors and set to clone. Please don't ask me how I did it. A bit hit and miss at the time.

[John Rumm]

Its DVI.

Just plug in a DVI to DB15 adaptor, and then use a normal VGA style lead,

may find the TV has HDMI as well. In which case DVI to HDMI is also possible in many cases. That may give a slightly better image quality.

[dennis]

Mine does, however DVI doesn't, it only has the digital and/or analogue video. Its a Radeon 3600 series card IIRC.

[Mike.. . . .]

OK, two left

I thought they did, but I can live without it.

[Lee]

Just for info; The DVI standard does not carry audio. However some cards, like my nVidia card, do carry sound from the DVI port which allows for sound over HDMI when used with the DVI->HDMI adapter. Mine requires an internally connected spdif cable to do this, some of the ATIs have an encoder onboard and don't need the (internal) cable.

Lee

[hugh]

Definitely to be avoided if possible - going from digital to analogue back to digital.

[Huge]

Thanks for the suggestions, but I'm not going there. I've wasted enough time trying to get the logical monitors to align with the physical ones and be "joined" at the correct edges. It doesn't help that I move offices regularly, so the setups change all the time.