WHAT YOU CAN DO
• Find out which HDMI cable you need for your PC and TV
• Add more inputs to your TV with an HDMI splitter
• Use the right adapter to connect old cables between PC and TV
• Get the right USB-C adapter for your TV
• Buy an HDMI-to-VGA adapter to connect an old projector
• Play 4K video using Google Chromecast
• Use Miracast to connect Windows to your TV
There are many reasons why you might need to connect your PC and TV. Perhaps you want to share a photo slideshow with your family. Maybe you plan on watching a film – without having to hunch over your laptop. Or you may have set up a video call with relatives, and prefer to chat in more comfortable surroundings than your home office.
Whatever your reasons, there are plenty of ways to connect your PC and TV set, though it’s easy to get it wrong.
Pairing a computer and television from different manufacturers, bought at different times, with very different uses in mind, means you won’t necessarily have matching ports through which to connect them. You might find yourself wondering if resolution matters – and, if it does, whether higher is necessarily better. What are refresh rates? And what should you do if your computer is a super-slim device with only a single USB-C port, and seemingly no video output at all?
In almost every instance, these questions can be answered, and any problems they might throw up can be solved – if you know what equipment you need and how to hook it up.
As always, we’re here to help. Over the next few pages, we’ll walk you through the process of connecting your computer and TV, both with physical cables and across your wireless network.
HOW TO CONNECT WITH WIRES
We’ve been plugging aerials, DVD players and set-top boxes into our TVs for years, so it should be no surprise that, in most situations, the easiest way to connect your computer to your TV is to use a cable. Exactly which cable you need depends on the connections at the back of your TV and computer, and their respective resolutions.
HDMI to HDMI
Most modern computers – aside from the very smallest, which we’ll come to later – have a built-in High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) port. This is the interface we use to connect a modern monitor to a computer. Depending on the specification of your devices and the cable
