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[techguru]

What if you want to hook your laptop into your home's home theatre to watch a DVD?

Unfortunately there's no simple answer to your question because every person's home theatre is setup a bit differently, with different input and output connections and possibilities. But I recently hooked my laptop up to my home theatre and lived to tell the story, so I'll describe how I got it to work.

First, it's helpful to separate the task into 3 chunks: Video Connections, Audio Connections, and Software.

Video Connections: On your home theatre, you need to figure out what device controls what you see. It might be your AV Receiver, or it might be your TV, or it might be a bit of a hybrid. For me, I switch video on my TV, so I examined the back of my TV and discovered a VGA HD-15 input connector labeled PC and I noted that my laptop had a similar output connector. So I bought this cable and hooked it up. On my laptop, which is a Dell, I hit Fn-F8 to switch to dual video output, and I set the TV for PC input.

Now for the tricky part, (and I just called my husband for his confirmation of the event) after struggling for a few weeks, and upgrading all the video drivers in my PC, I eventually saw the PC output on the TV.

This is the step that can vary, a lot. With my laptop, the video drivers needed a complete overhaul, involving the latest drivers from Intel. On my husband's Dell laptop, I simply hit Fn-F8 and the output appeared first try. Go figure!

If you can't make a VGA HD15 to VGA HD15 connection because one end or the other doesn't accept that format, there may be some other possibilities, like S-Video (home-movie quality; not recommended for DVD playback), or DVI or HDMI connections (great, if you have them).

Audio Connections: On my laptop, the headphone output is the only audio output, and I switch my sound on my AV Receiver. Given all that, my only choice is to connect the headphone out to an unused audio input on the receiver, using this cable. If your laptop has a digital sound output (most do not, but some do) then you would get somewhat better results connecting that to your AV Receiver, assuming it accepts a digital audio input. If you are switching audio using your TV, well just route the signal there, using the same cable.

Software: To play a DVD on your laptop requires a good software DVD player. Most PC laptops come with Windows Media Player, which you should try (Make sure you have Version 9, the newest version). Some people are perfectly happy with it. Others prefer Real Player. Many computers come with Power DVD or you can purchase it, which is optimized for video playback, and seems to be one of the most popular choices.