Connecting a laptop to a TV

[#1]

I want to connect my laptop (Acer 5680) to my TV (Toshiba AV55). My laptop has S-video out via a mini din socket and the tv excecpts s-video in via a scart. The problem is which lead to choose. There's a list here
http://www.tvcables.co.uk/cgi-bin/tvcables/scan/fi=products/st=db/co=yes/sf=category/se=S-Video%20to... which gives various choices, there's some on Amazon and a sort of adaptor here http://www.svideo.com/svideoscart.html. Has anyone any experience of this and can point me in the right direction. I don't require sound, this is just for family viewing of photos on the TV.
Paul

[#2]

The quality will be pretty awful, I've done that sort of thing before and gave up eventually as it wasn't worth watching. 
Does the TV have any other input connection or device - e.g. HDMI or a SCART-connected DVD player?

[#3]

Quote from: HPsauce

Does the TV have any other input connection or device - e.g. HDMI or a SCART-connected DVD player?

Yes, both. I cant quite remember how the dvd is connected. I have a pvr pluged into a scart and I'm not sure if the dvd player is plugged into the pvr or into a 2nd scart

[#4]

Most modern DVD players will play CD's or DVD's full of .jpg files, try it first though.
(sometimes not rewriteable discs though)
With blank discs at about 10p each or less it's a pretty cheap route, and provides a backup/archive too!

[#5]

Its a very cheap player, will have to look at the manual and see. I was hopeing to be able to come home after a days photography, plug the camera card into the laptop and go. It sounds as though it might be a non-started

[#6]

Why should s-video be poor quality?

What you need is a scart adapter with an s-video input, and a standard s-video to s-video cable. EG:
http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_7&products_id=101062
And
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=30616
Or one of these
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=35910

The issue about quality is getting the resolution and refresh right on your tv out - ideally 50Hz/interlaced which is what S-video is intended for
(some edits to get rid of my cock ups - apologies)

[#7]

And therein, in my experience, lies the problem. Getting a decent (and compatible) resolution video from the laptop.
I'm not saying it won't/can't work but I've tried several times with different kit and not had any luck.
(by luck I mean - acceptable quality for looking at pictures)
In the end I gave up and, when I need to do that, use a VGA to TV converter box which is "reasonable" but much more than a cable.
For pictures & video I normally just put it on CD or DVD as you normally get better resolution, especially with "HD-ready" TV.
My newer PC's with Digital video connect direct to the HDMI with a little playing with the settings.

[#8]

I have a stand alone HD, described as a media HD, have downloaded all my digitised Pics, lots of my Videos, and MP3, has scart and AV sockets and USB, plugs straight into TV, has a remote and come up with a menu on TV

[#9]

Well I've loaded some jpegs onto a re-writeable dvd and it worked ok, started off by putting the full sized images on (5megs each) but it took the dvd player so long to load each image it wasn't worth the wait. For the 2nd attempt I re-sized each image to 1200pix wide and that worked ok. There's probably an optimum image width to stop the dvd player having to re-size each image but I don't know the correct value. A bit of cussing at the remote control because it didn't do what I was expecting it to do, but got the result.

[#10]

Amazing what a "cheap" DVD player will do.
Now you just need to decide if you can make the process easy enough to do in bulk and quickly.
What's the picture quality like? I'll bet it's better than standard 640*480 which is probably all you get via S-video. 

[#11]

Standard TV resolution is fairly close to 800x600 (at 720x576) so that would be a good place to start with resizing your images.
HD tellies are either 1280x720 or 1920x1280 but as you're connecting through scart and not HDMI, I figure that it will be a standard PAL resolution.
B.

[#12]

one of the laptops we use in this house hasnt got a graphics card and runing it on vga to a 32 inch 720p just gives bad v sync problems and isnt worth doing.
edit. must read whole post to get to this bit in future

Quote

I don't require sound, this is just for family viewing of photos on the TV.

[#13]

Quote from: HPsauce

Now you just need to decide if you can make the process easy enough to do in bulk and quickly. What's the picture quality like? I'll bet it's better than standard 640*480 which is probably all you get via S-video.

Its quite easy to do in bulk, I use ACDSEE pro for my photo oranizing and basic processing and it will batch re-size a group of images and burn the dvd.
As I can use re-writeable dvd's it doesn't even cost me the disc. I already use a seperate method for backup ( a 4 stage system).
Quality is pretty good, certainly good enough for general viewing, I have never used s-video so had no idea the quality that gives.
I'll try resizing to 800*600 next time and see how that performs.
Paul

[#14]

Sounds like a result! 

[#15]

You might be able to use CD's instead of DVD's - mine works on this.
3264 x 2448 pixel .jpeg's take about 2 seconds each to load - quality is excellent.