Add-on TV-out for laptop?

[Kaizer]

I finally left 10 years of smaller and smaller desktop computers behind for a Toshiba U200 almostultraportable to be able to spice up any dull lecture with questions to the lecturer based on really useless information hot off wikipedia as well as endless games of solitaire.. I got a good price on it while considering the Dell XPS m1210 as well as a 12.1" HP, and didn't catch the lack of a TV-out in my excitement.

I've looked around a bit and tried the VGA-to-S-Video/RCA cable easily available on ebay, but it requires a bit of magic from the graphics drivers I just can't seem to make happen. Are there any other alternatives connecting by USB or Firewire or something like that? The tv-cards I find only seem to have inputs..

Kind regards
Kjetil

 

[Zaphod]

I've looked around a bit and tried the VGA-to-S-Video/RCA cable easily available on ebay, but it requires a bit of magic from the graphics drivers I just can't seem to make happen.

I have never seen those cables work on a computer. Sems to me they're made for video equipment that often carry several signals on the same 9 pin d-sub connector due to limited space (like a projector).

Anyway, you need some powered circuitry to do the RGB->YUV conversion. Something like this, which is available in Norway here. These converters used to be (more) popular a couple of years ago, but now, when virtually everything has TV-out, you'll soon have trouble finding one.

 

[bystander]

Could this be suitable?.

Alternatively this could be the sort of device that your after. It's a PCMCIA card with Video-in and video-out connectors (composite and S-Video).

 

[Kaizer]

Thanks a lot to the both of you!

The VGA-TV cable seems to have worked with a lot of Matrox VGA-cards as they supposedly routed the TV-out signal over spare pins on the VGA-plug.

Looks like one of those boxes will be my way out, something which continues the gnawing away at the definition of ultraportable, but I won't complain as the laptop itself (T7200, 1GB, whisper quiet, nice screen) has done me real well for all other imaginable purposes..

Thanks!
Kjetil