how to connect your laptop or pc to you tv

If you're like me, you have a lot of movies and music on your computer. You might sit in front of your laptop enjoying your media collection while you browse the Web and chat with friends. It works well, but when you have a huge 40+-inch HDTV and home-theater setup a few feet away, consuming your media on a 15-inch laptop screen with tinny integrated speakers seems silly. Wouldn't it be great if you could pipe what's on your laptop screen to your HDTV, and treat it just like another monitor? And wouldn't accessing your collection of movies and music through your HDTV be awesome? Well, you can do both of those things, relatively easily, in a variety of ways.

There are plenty of options for displaying your laptop on your HDTV. Many of them are excellent ways to watch your movies and listen to your music. Only some of them are appropriate for Web browsing, video conferencing, or other computer-reliant activities, however, and due to slight lag with current wireless display technologies, only a wired connection is suitable for playing most action-oriented PC-based games. Here are your options for connecting your laptop to your HDTV. First consider what you want to do, then choose the way that's right for you.

Best for Gaming: Run a Cable
 

Many recent notebooks offer built-in HDMI outputs, and those that don't, typically have DVI ports (which can connect to HDMI ports through an adapter) or VGA ports (which can connect to PC ports found on most HDTVs). If you don't mind being physically tethered to your screen by a length of cable, you can just plug it in and treat your TV like a second monitor. Since the HDMI/DVI/VGA connection can be video-only (a decreasingly common trend, but a possible one, especially if you use a DVI-to-HDMI adapter), you might need to use an audio patch cable to connect the notebook's audio to either the HDTV or a nearby set of speakers. Still, a direct, wired connection is the best method if you value speed over all else. With a cable, you're guaranteed zero latency between the notebook and the HDTV, making twitch gaming (first-person shooters and other action-heavy games) possible.