Have just bought a Philips "Smart" LED TV with a view to watching online sport. Too late I have found out that Philips does not support Adobe Flash (or maybe Adobe does not support Philips) Anyway, the upshot is that I can only view the sites that require Flash, by browsing the site with a computer that has an HDMI port (which none of mine do) and extending the desktop onto the TV screen. If I have it right, this is the only way of watching the sport that I bought the TV for! Just never occurred to me that Flash was not supported. Anyway, unless anyone has a better suggestion, I would like some advice on specs for building a cheap but suitable desktop machine, purely for this purpose.
The other question is, I am unsure whether I would have to have a high quality video card to feed the tv, or if the tv uses its own video.
You connect Via the HDMI and have sound and video in full HD Resolution You would need a Video Card or motherboard with a Hdmi port.
OR:
You also can connect Via a VGA port on the back or side of the TV to your Computer.
A regular VGA cable normally used to connect the Monitor to a computer will work.
The sound port for the VGA connection is usually right next to the Vga port on the TV that needs be connected to the computer speaker port.
HDMI = one cable for sound and video gives HD 1080p Resolution
VGA = 2 cables VGA cable for Video and Male to Male stereo audio cable for sound. This is An Analog connection see your manual for what Resolution it will support. This is what I use most of the time. Sometimes it hard to get the HDMI Resolution setup and the VGA is very easy and looks really good also.
So, as I understand it, my only option is to basically use the TV as another monitor. Such a waste. I have already tried the vga connection, but the resulting picture is unwatchable. Just too fuzzy to see anything useful. Any opinions as to whether a better graphics card would improve the picture to any extent, and if so, any suggestions as to what spec would be needed without breaking the bank? I notice that most of the modern ones have a HDMI port, which is a good start.
Yes, it is just using the TV as a computer monitor. I am surprised the VGA connection looked really fuzzy. Did you set the Resolution to the "Native Resolution" just the same as you would on a regular lcd Monitor? That usually means setting the resolution slider in your Display Properties all the way to the right?
Getting a Video Card with a HDMI port should give you a better picture but it can be hard to get the Resolution set up so it gives you a full screen picture.
How old is your computer? Does it have a PCIe video card slot? Any decent Video Card now has a HDMI port. One Gig of Video Ram and Nvdia or ATI/AMD chipset on the Video card should work better.
Sorry for the delay in replying. I have been testing various configs, with little success. My video card does not have HDMI port, and the video from the vga is really not good, so am a bit limited as to what I can achieve. Conclusion I have come to is that maybe the Internet connection here is a major factor in what quality I can get anyway. Nothing much I can do about that, but I am grateful for your help.
Your VGS connection is analog, not digital, it will never be as sharp as a digital signal. The best solution is to get a new video card with an HDMI output jack.
