Party Vibe

hmm – if such a cable exists it would contains highly miniaturised electronics at some point unless you mean a laptop with S-video output (see below)

the VGA standard is analog RGB but the S-video (component) input to a TV is a Y/C input – one pair of cables provides the luminance (black and white) and the other is the chrominance (colour) part of the signal. Although you can send RGB signals in on Scart the scan, resolution and refresh rates are way different on a computer compared to normal telly, particularly in a PAL country like Great Britain

there are some laptops and desktops which can generate an S-video signal as an “extra monitor” on the video card (this signal is presented on a 4-pin mini-DIN socket), but it seems Titch’s laptop isn’t one of them – unless there is such a socket on the laptop with a picture of a telly screen and an arrow pointing out of it, in which case its a simple cable from Maplins. The S-video output is then “monitor 2” on Windows (and expect to spend some time tweaking the video standard settings, and unfortunately often the drivers have bugs with PAL kit 🙁 )

If the laptop does not have this output, the easiest solution would be a scan convertor box (although I expect it isn’t cheap) – I think you can get a USB 2.0 one these days which would just show as an extra monitor,

I’m not sure about whether they have the advanced chipsets etc required for gaming as these things are usually used in corporate places as “electronic display boards” so you can use normal cheap tellies as display devices rather than monitors that require expensive cables..

such a thing can be made to work but it is not a trival matter (you need the right video chipset, custom software and knowledge of the technical issues involved) – it can risk hardware damage if the scan rates go wrong.

I’m still looking for the VGA scan converter – unfortunately they seem to be hard to find nowadays as many laptops and desktop video cards have S-video built in (might be worth checking if it is actually present on your laptop)

yes, assuming (sorry its yet again not a simple answer!)

1] the cable is correctly wired as INPUT on the Scart plug – there are two ways of wiring this sort of cable as someone might want to send the video signal the other way (like sending video from a VTR to a computer capture card!)

2] your telly does actually accept component (S-video) input either via the 4-pin din socket or on the Scart . if it does not, everything will be in black and white (unless you can set your laptop to output composite video)

if there is an s-video input you will usually be able to select it on the menu of your TV set…

I always tended to prefer a S-video cable with 4-pin DIN plugs at each end (there may even be an S-video input on your telly!) and then an S-video/Scart Adapter with an input-output switch. I never particularly liked Scart cables anyway…

you can get all this stuff from Maplins (or even from the cheap electrical goods shops found in many towns).