kevin: hi i'm kevin and this is randy. randy: hi. kevin: today in this video we're going to explain how to connect your home computer to a monitor, or a tv, or to multiple monitors, or, if you have an all-in-one computer that doesn't have a video out port, we're going to explain how you can still get your video out to another monitor. along the way we're going to explain all these cables and the ports they connect to, so you can get whatever your home connection scenario is, we'll help you get it going. randy: we can do that. kevin: alright so let's get started. let's talk about the cables first.
randy: well the main thing is that there are two types of video cables out there on the market. there's digital and there's analog. you want to use digital if at all possible, mainly because of content protection. if you're trying to view a high definition like a blu-ray and you're trying to do so on an analog cable you won't be able to get it in high-def and you'll probably get this content protection error message that pops up. if you can, use a digital connection. kevin: so you get your best, highest quality and you can view all your movies if you go digital and you don't have to worry about it. okay. so what's this one? what is this kind here? randy: that one is an hdmi connector. it's a very common connector nowadays;
you'll see them on a lot of tv's. it's a digital cable that carries both digital audio and video at the same time. kevin: i like that. that's good. randy: so one connection, no extra cables. kevin: yeah i hate having so many cables back there, so that's great. randy: so if you're lucky enough to have that on your display and on your pc then that's the one you probably want to use. this next one here is a dvi connector. this one actually causes a lot of problems out there for some folks because there's multiple types. there's dvi-a, there's dvi-d, there's dvi-i there's dl, which carries twice as much data of video signals. there's a lot of stuff to them, but basically the main thing to know here is if you have a dvi port
try to get a dvi-i or dvi-d cable so that you can make the connection. kevin: so you have to make sure you have the right pins in there or something? how do you know the difference? randy: you'll notice there on the dvi you'll see a little blade inside that little blade pin that kinda goes horizontal to all the other ones. that kind of tells you that it can carry digital but you'll see four little ones next to that, two above, two below that little blade. those are the analog pins, so dvi-a and dvi-i can also carry an analog signal. so if you want you can use an adapter or a connection to another dvi-i or a port to get the video signal. i know that's confusing. it is. that's why people get confused.
it would be nice if everybody just used dvi-i and it would all be good but unfortunately that's not the case, so you may have to use an adapter or know which type that you have. kevin: and these ones are just video signal also right? that's why we have this other cable here? randy: exactly, it's only carrying video so if your tv or monitor has speakers then you're going to need to use that. kevin: the audio cable. ok. so what about this next one here that looks kinda like a dvi but it's not. randy: the rest of these are analog cables. this is a vga cable. it's probably the best of all of these for carrying an analog video to your monitor or tv. it does high definition, but you won't be able to video those blu-ray movies because it's analog and you'll get content protection messages. but if you're working on just a pc to a monitor
and you're doing graphical applications it'll do high resolutions. very high resolutions. and then of course s-video and composite. these are like the old standard tv type formats that you would run from like your old vhs player, things like that. some pc's actually have those ports, but it's not recommended to use that connection, only if you have to. kevin: yeah i've seen them on there. a lot of times they're for the in ports, right? they're bringing in like if you're connecting to your cable or set top box or to a vcr into your tv. randy: that's if your pc has a tv tuner. if you have a media center pc, then you could use one of these cables to bring tv in and you can record tv on your pc. kevin: right, rather than going out to the monitor or tv. got it.
so now that we know about these cables what do we need to know about how to plug them in. randy: well the biggest thing is you need to know what ports you have on your pc and what ports you have available on the display devices that you're going to attach them to. kevin: so if your pc has an hdmi port and your monitor or tv has an hdmi port then i would use that one. so it's kind of in order here. go with your highest quality or best digital output option until whichever ones match up. randy: right. and you're limited by what you have on your pc and your monitor. kevin: ok, well then let's start setting one up. let's set up a monitor. randy: let's do it.
kevin: alright so let's set up this computer with this monitor. so what do we need to know first to do that. randy: well, you need to know what ports you have on both your pc and your monitor so you can make the connection. kevin: ok, so this one's got a whole bunch of ports so what are these ports down here? randy: the ports on the bottom, those are, i mean there's all kinds there. you've got audio and usb, but there are video ports however they've been blocked off with those little plastic covers. hp has decided to do that because you have a video card installed and those have been disabled. you do not want to remove those black plastic covers to access those ports.
kevin: ok, so it's just because they don't work or anything anyway, right? randy: well, you could actually get them to work, but you don't want to because you have a video card installed. it's much better to use that video card. kevin: ok, so we've got two cards up here and i see some of them like the yellow and the white and the red? randy: yeah, that card on the top looks like they're video ports, and they are, but that's for a tv tuner. those are video in, so you would connect your vhs or dvd player, and you could actually bring video into that. kevin: ok, so that's what we were talking about before; bringing it in, not running it back out to the monitor. randy: right, so you could record tv programs. this is a high end pc. media center is probably on there. but the main thing you want is this card right here, which is your video card, and that has, as you can see,
hdmi on the left, and then your blue port there is vga, and then your dvi port which is white. so those are your three video connections that you can use. kevin: right. and you said that before that you want to go with hdmi. it's the best, it's digital and audio both so can we connect that then to hdmi, to this monitor? randy: well let's find out what the connections are on here, so let's turn this around and flip it up because the ports are on the bottom there. you have a vga port, a dvi port, and then your audio, that green one, and you'll need that. kevin: ok, so there's no hdmi on that monitor then so i can't connect that. so you told me the other...we want to stay digital so we have to go to dvi, right?
that's probably the best choice to go to next. randy: that's correct, but since we're going with dvi remember is does not carry an audio signal like hdmi does so if you want to listen to audio on your monitor you're going to have to also connect that green audio cable. kevin: ok, well let's do that. let's connect this dvi cable over there. randy: let's do. kevin: alright, so let's see if i can get this in here correctly. ok, there it is. you want to tighten those for me? randy: and you can connect that to the back of the pc. kevin: alright, so same thing here. give it a little tighten and then i've got the audio cable here.
if you want to do me the honor of plugging that in for me? randy: green to green. kevin: match the colors. seems easy enough. ok, so now we're connected right? now we just do the old test which is let's push the old power button and see what we get. alright there we go. so now we've connected a monitor to the pc. kevin: ok so now we're going to connect a computer to a tv. so what do we have to do to make that happen? randy: you want to watch football and then switch over to browse the internet or something? kevin: absolutely, i don't want to watch commercials. randy: well a tv is nothing more than a big monitor, right? it's got a lot of connections on the back.
think of it just like a big monitor. so again you start with your pc... kevin: alright we have dvi, vga, hdmi. randy: very good. which one would you like to use? kevin: hdmi. it's the best, right? randy: so it's a digital connection so now we have to figure out what does this tv have. so let's flip it around so we can see the connections. and look at here. you have all kinds of connections here that are analog, you have s-video, composite, component, you've got these coaxial down here, a lot of these are tv in, but your digital connections there are a couple down here. there's an hdmi and a dvi.
kevin: alright so we can do it, could use either one. alright, so let's go with the hdmi since it has that and that's what we want to use. randy: alright let's do it. kevin: would you like to do me the honor of plugging it in on that side and i'll plug it in other here? randy: alrighty. while we're plugging this in, one this that you really have to remember is that on a tv, unlike a monitor, on a tv when you're connected via hdmi you're going to have to select that as your source. so on your remote control you usually have a source or input or an hdmi button that you would press to flip over to that source that you're on. kevin: alright so it's connected now. let's turn it around and see if it works.
randy: alright, let's watch football. kevin: or surf the internet from the tv. alright so, i'll do the big test, push power. ah ha, we've got fuzz. we have to do what you were talking about with the source or the input. either off the remote or up here there's a button for the input. and you can see it switches through, switch to hdmi...there it is. it's that simple. randy: you still may have to adjust the display resolution settings on your pc to match the capabilities of your tv, just like you would a monitor. kevin: because otherwise you could distort it too big or too small or something so just to match it up. so there you go. it's that easy.
kevin: alright so now we're going to connect two monitors to the one pc. so i've got this really old monitor that i've had for forever, like since i was a boy, and i don't want to get rid of it. it still works! randy: it's a beauty! kevin: it is. so i want to bring it in and connect it with my pc so that i can, you know like we talked about with the tv, i can surf the web on this while doing other things over here, like watching tv or something else on this monitor. makes sense, that's actually a good setup. so how do i do that. how do i set these two monitors up at once. randy: well a lot of it depends on your video card. most video cards can do dual display output
which is what you're trying to do. and i noticed you have three connectors there. so you just need to connect, again, match the port that's coming off of your monitor even if it's 10 years old or whatever to the port, as long as it's the same port and it looks like it's a vga, and i'm pretty sure this is going to be a vga monitor...again, this is an analog...do you have the end of the cable there? kevin: yeah it's back here. that is a vga connector. and you notice it's blue and the color coding is blue. kevin: i'll just connect it right in there, right? randy: right. again now the thing to remember this is an analog connection so you don't want to try to view blu-ray movies or anything like that over here on this monitor because it's not going to work.
and again just to reiterate, your motherboard has that cover over that other vga connector. don't ever try to take that off because it's not going to work. kevin: right, so it's just out of the same ports when they're next to each other on the same card. that's what tells me, so if i only have one port there i'm not able to connect two. randy: yeah, and if you don't have the ports it is possible to install yet another video card in there so that you get more ports, but they have to be the same video card. kevin: or some kind of an adapter or something? randy: you can't mix and match the motherboard and the video card. kevin: ok.
randy: so now what? kevin: so now what? that's just what i was about to ask you. now what do i do? randy: well let's turn them on and power them up. kevin: turn on the computer and see what happens. randy: that's exactly what it is, you see what happens. kevin: alright so now we're back to the desktop but the other monitor is not turned on randy: and we're just seeing this one right now, so what do i have to do now? well, that's your primary display device so it's ok. you have to go in there into windows and basically tell it that you want to use a second monitor.
kevin: "use a second monitor"[laughs] randy: that worked out really well didn't it? kevin: yeah. randy: no, you actually have to go into display properties. so go ahead and... you happen to be using windows vista, but it's pretty much the same across vista, 7 and xp. right-click, go over to personalize. some of them go right over to display settings but there's display settings. you see this screen here? notice how you have a little preview window showing two representations of monitors. one and two. the second one is grayed out. kevin: so this one right here is one and the grayed out one is two.
randy: correct, two indicating your second monitor. well you want that thing to go so click on it. still grayed out so you have to say "extend the desktop on to this monitor". kevin: ok, it's not grayed out anymore. randy: that's right, you're telling windows that let's use this monitor to extend, make my windows desktop bigger. more space. you have to click "apply" for it to take. kevin: oh here it goes. randy: "do you want to keep it?" yes. kevin: it's warming up, so it'll take it a second but it will come on. it always comes on. it's why it's still here.
randy: it is a good old monitor. look at that! kevin: hey i see something. oh there's my mouse. randy: yeah now try to drag a window over here and see what happens. i know what's going to happen. oh it's not going. kevin: rejected. randy: yeah do you know why? kevin: no. randy: ok do you see how your...those little squares in the preview pane, that represents the orientation of the devices.
kevin: so like where they're placed next to each other? randy: where on your desktop. right. so you notice the two is off to the right, well this is the second monitor. kevin: so it thinks i'm going this way. randy: yeah that's kind of strange. so what you can do is click and drag that and make it... kevin: drag what? randy: the number two. kevin: ok. oh hey it popped up. now where am i dragging it? on the other side of it? randy: to the left. just like you have it arranged here. kevin: and "apply" right?
randy: you have to say "apply" each time. it will go blank for a second. kevin: so now let's see if you're right. oh hey look at that. randy: isn't that sweet? kevin: it's like magic. randy: now you can you do what you're wanting. you can watch tv... kevin: so i can set up my internet browser over here, i can turn on media center here, or if i had that tv still set up i could be watching media center on the big tv and on the other monitor, do whatever. randy: yeah exactly, flip over the source and watch cable tv.
kevin: it probably just depends on what types of cables i can connect to which ports, right? it all comes back to that. what connects to what. there we go, that's pretty easy actually. now we have them both set up. alright so now we have this touchsmart and i want to extend my desktop over to this other monitor. however, when i looked at the back of the touchsmart there is no video out port, there's just video in. so i can receive tv signal or something but i can't send it over to the other monitor so can i even do that with an all-in-one touchsmart? randy: yeah, a lot of folks have this same question because all-in-ones and touchsmart pc's don't have video out because they have a built in display. very easy to setup but if you want to do something like
add another monitor most people think it can't be done, but it can. you can use one of these. this is a usb graphics adapter. it's like another video card that you plug in via a usb port. kevin: that's very cool. randy: it is very cool. and all you have to do to set up it up is install some software first, which we've already done, and then plug it in. so let's do it. kevin: so install the cd that comes with it and plug it in? alright. let's give it a try. randy: just like that. now this one happens to have a dvi-i connector so i have a dvi-d which is compatible. i just plug it in there like that. you hear a plug and play over there? kevin: i did.
randy: and then tighten it down. make sure it's on, and ta da! since we're setting up two monitors now you still have this same scenario like you had before. kevin: right where the desktop is probably going to the other side, yeah i can't go this way. randy: you have to match the layout. you have to go into display properties like we showed you under the setting up two displays kevin: okay, i think i remember. we right-click on the screen, i think, right? and select personalize. i'm going to select display down here. randy: you notice it's different cause you're in windows 7 now it's a little bit different. kevin: each windows operating system puts it a little differently but they're fairly similar.
you can still kind of try the same thing. randy: you're going in to adjust the display resolution. kevin: right, so then i come in here and i select change display settings. and here you can see about my 1 and 2. and it's already extended automatically, which that was pretty cool, so i just have to drag my number 2 over here and click apply. ok, so i've moved the number 2 over so let's see if it goes. hey look at that. i did it! you can extend the desktop from the touchsmart with no video out over to another monitor. all it took was using a usb graphics adapter, and there it goes. randy: just make sure that when you get one of these usb graphics adapters that it has the port type
that you need to connect your monitor with. this monitor has dvi so this one's dvi but you may want to get an hdmi or vga. kevin: right, again like we always say, look at your ports and your cables and which ones are there. so if you've got that find the other connection. everything has a usb pretty much. so there you go. so it is possible to connect a computer that doesn't have a video out to another monitor. randy: yes. kevin: so we've shown you how to connect your home computer to a monitor, how to connect it to a tv, how to connect multiple monitors to your computer, we even showed you how to take an all-in-one or a touchsmart pc that has no video out port and connect it to another monitor anyway.
so then the scenario that what if you have your computer as one port type but your monitor has another. it worked great what we did but what if you don't have it? randy: well you can still usually make the connection so like this older monitor here that you just can't get rid of? that has a vga connection only. but a lot of these newer pc's, if you go and buy a new pc, they'll only have dvi and hdmi so how in the world are you going to use that monitor without going out and buying a new monitor? well you can use one of these conversion cables here. this will make a dvi connection to a vga. and then there are also, hp will often times put adapters in the box, or you can go out and buy these things, they're relatively inexpensive,
to where you can take one connection type to dvi in this case and make the connection to a vga. kevin: ok, so you just plug in whichever size you have and then just plug in the other one. randy: right, and it's a relatively inexpensive solution. kevin: ok so say we've done that. that all works. what if you go through this and your monitor still never comes on? you've got the correct ports, the correct cables, but no video. randy: yeah it's usually not fun. so you've got to start looking for bent pins, the little pins inside the ends of the cable and the ports, look for bent pins, look for damaged cables, if you moved it to another location
and now it doesn't work like if you put it behind the desk or something, look for damage and then replace the cable if necessary. probably the best thing that you can do for troubleshooting is to take the monitor to another pc, like a friends laptop, and make the connection there to make sure that the monitor hardware isn't really bad, because if it comes on another pc then you know that the problem is with your computer. kevin: so you're trying to isolate where the problem is occurring. if the monitor works on another pc then it's probably something occurring with the pc that you're using. randy: yeah, because it could be the pc or the monitor. you don't to troubleshoot
and replace the wrong one cause it could get expensive. kevin: ok, so what if you have video though, here's another scenario, but you have no audio. we talked about hdmi has audio built in the other ones come with a cable. what if either of those scenarios. randy: make sure that your monitor is capable of speakers. not all monitors have speakers. but if it does, and you want to use that little audio cable we showed you before, make the green connection, make sure the cable's not damaged. if you have hdmi audio what a lot of people don't know is that that can be enabled as the default device in windows for audio. so if you into audio properties
inside of windows control panel, you open that up you'll see hdmi audio in there and you can right-click that and set hdmi as the default device. that forces windows to send the sound out to your monitor or tv. kevin: so it can work naturally as opposed to plug and play but if it doesn't you kind of have to manually tell windows to make sure to use that. randy: and if there's some kind of a software conflict going on like hdmi audio is working, but then all the sudden it stops usually all you have to do is just restart the pc and that kind of gives it a nudge and that gets it going again. kevin: ok so what if the video looks a little messed up, like the video comes through it doesn't look right.
randy: like things look fuzzy on the screen? kevin: right. randy: usually that's scaling. usually that means that the display resolution for your monitor is not set to the native display resolution. so all monitors come with, all lcd monitors, come with a native display resolution. that's the height by width. and you want to make that setting that matches in windows to the native display of your monitor. kevin: so you just have to adjust your display settings on the computer to match until it looks right. randy: yep, to match the exact same one that your monitor is, your native display resolution. ok, i think that covers the scenarios but if we did not touch on an issue that you're having
or you still didn't get help try going to the hp website and searching on your particular symptoms and you'll probably find an answer.
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