Samsung Smart TV as VGA monitor?

My reason for asking this question was told "C-Series ex-link is on TTL-Level (0V to +5V) while your PC operates at RS232-Level (-12V to +12V) so your cable has to have at least some kind of Voltage-level shifter."

Hard for me to believe that Samsung would make Smart TV that could be damaged if someone used a standard VGA cable to connect it to a PC.

But you never can tell and would rather be safe and ask.

Thanks

Ken

Not all sub-D connectors are created serial ports ;-)

The VGA connector on a PC is a female 15-pin sub-D carrying TTL levels.

If your PC has a 9-pin male sub-D, that would most likely be a COM port carrying RS232-level signals. Sending video over this port is a no-no.

Cheers!

Correction: the VGA connector carries both analog and digital (TTL). The color lines RGB carry analog signals (0.7V p-p).

You're question, split over 2 messages, is really quite vague.

Either there's a VGA connector on the tv set (and it says "VGA", or there isn't. Just because there's a connector of the right size and number of pins doesn't mean it's VGA.

On the other hand, you may be asking something else.

Micahel

If your PC has a connector that looks like this

, and the TV has the same connector on the back, then you should be able to use a cable with this connector on both ends to connect the PC to the TV.

You will probably have to use the TV remote control, or the buttons on the front panel of the TV (if it has them), to switch to the "PC" or "VGA" input, as shown on the on-screen menu on the TV. The TV probably won't automatically switch to that input when you turn on the PC or when you plug in the VGA cable.

If the PC is putting out a picture that is smaller than the capability of the TV (which is usually 1920 x 1080), the TV will probably scale up the picture the PC is putting out so that it fills the TV screen. This may make the picture on the TV look stretched or fuzzy. If you set the PC to display 1920 x 1080, you will get a better picture on the TV.

If the PC (or the video card in the PC) is very old, it may not be possible to set it that high. In that case, set it as high as you can, and look in the TV menus (remote control or front panel buttons) for options that control the scaling. You probably won't be able to get the picture to fill the whole TV screen, but you can get it to look less stretched or fuzzy.

If the PC is putting out some goofball signal that the TV cannot handle, you will probably get a message like "Out of range" or "No signal" on the TV screen. You may get a distorted picture on the TV for a few seconds before you get that message. If you get that message, just unplug the VGA cable from the TV, and you shouldn't hurt anything.

Matt Roberds

In that case you still have some options to explore:

- some cards/drivers have options to create custom resolutions in their control panel advanced settings.

- some cards/drivers read the resolutions and refresh rates supported by the connected monitor through the EDID bus and make them available. You must use a VGA cable that connects the EDID pins (not all do).

- you can use WinModelines to add custom resolutions if your card driver is supported. Most ATI and NVidia and some Matrox.

The modeline for 1920x1080 at 60Hz would be: Modeline "1920x1080 67,1KHz 60,0Hz" 172.798 1920 2043 2249 2576 1080 1081 1084 1118 -hsync -vsync

Everyone,

Thanks for the comments.

If someone tells me how I will post a photo of the Samsung Smart TV VGA plug.

Ken

You can't post it directly in the newsgroup. Put it on a photo hosting site like Imgur (you don't need an account there to do this) and post the URL here.

If it doesn't look like the connector I posted earlier (three rows with

5 sockets each), then it's probably not a VGA connector.

Matt Roberds

Matt,

Thanks for the instructions!

Wanted everyone to see that the VGA connector has a label "PC IN"

Uploaded the photo and here are the links

[IMG]

Ken

Den 12-09-2014, skrev KenO:

If it is marked PC IN. it most surely is a VGA-connecter you can plug an ordinary VGA-cable in.

But if your pc has a HDMI-output, you will get better quality and sound in one cable.

Leif

--

beslutning at undlade det.

The connector labeled "PC IN" is a standard VGA connector. You can connect your PC to this TV set using a standard VGA cable, with male connectors on both ends of the cable.

If you also want your computer audio to come through the TV speakers, you can also use a standard audio cable, with 1/8" (3.5mm) stereo plugs on each end. One end plugs into the line-out jack on your PC (usually green), and the other end plugs into the "PC/DVI AUDIO IN" jack on your TV. You don't have to do this if all you care about is the picture.

Matt Roberds