I wanna use my computer on the TV!

On a site that addresses issues often related to TV and the internet, it seems only logical that there'd be a mention of how to integrate the two...literally.

For years I wondered: how can I see my laptop on my TV screen? I knew there had to be an existing, simple solution...but that solution evaded me for years. I didn't even figure it out until I came home one day, and my roommate Guillaume Andrieu was watching his laptop on my television.

I was in shock! What advanced foreign technology had Guillaume recently discovered that allowed him to operate and view the content of his laptop on my decidedly outdated TV? The answer, he explained was an S-Video cable.

Nearly every TV from 1991 to last year was built with an S-Video input...and most laptops are built with an S-Video output. All you need is an (aptly named) S-Video cable to connect the two, and then tell your computer to send the video signal through the cable (usually with a command like hitting the "Fn" key along with the "F5" key) and you'll see your computer screen on the television.

There are also cables that convert S-Video to RCA jacks (those little red, yellow and white round plugs used for older video games and DVDs) as well as standard S-Video to S-Video cables.

It's rare to find such an elegant solution for an obvious problem...and figured anyone reading this blog would appreciate that as much as I do.