Laptop to Big Screen

maybe you know the answers...

[grandpa]

Where I'm at, we were recently gifted a Zenith (r65w28) rear projection TV. It's working fine.

I'm trying to connect video from my laptop to the TV. The laptop has USB 2.0 and HDMI ports. It also has 1/4" audio jacks. The TV accepts RCA and S-Video connections.

I would assume, maybe incorrectly, the the TV would be able to handle digital/analog conversion - and I think that may be my snag. So the first question:

is an external digital/analog converter required?

I've looked around, no luck finding a reliable answer. I'm guessing the answer is yes since there's no digital connection (HDMI) on the TV.

Next question is about cabling. I've found some HDMI to RCA cables out there. I've also read some discussion about using the S-Video input on the TV, and running separate audio connections. Clearly a single cable solution is easiest, but not necessarily the best.

I have a good quality external speaker solution on the laptop, so it's not really critical that I get the audio out to the TV.

[swa66]

is an external digital/analog converter required?

Yes.

The problem for going from HDMI out to analog in is that's forbidden by HDCP. Digital Rights Management (DRM) at work for you.

It's probably easier to start from the vga-out or from a TV-out adapter than from the HDMI output (VGA-out and a TV-out card will not have DRM).

[grandpa]

Someone asked me today, "Why don't you just burn to a disc and play it on the DVD player?"

Truly a "Doh!" moment :-)