Displaying output form a laptop via VGA on a SDTV

[Fraggable]

I've got 5 27" SDTVs (Sharp 32SC26B to be exact), and 5 teachers who want to connect their laptops to the TVs to display PowerPoints, websites, etc. Now I know the TVs are pretty mcuh 640 X 480 resolution and it's going to look horrible, but they want to do it anyway. I bought some VGA-->S-video and composite video adapter cables but they don't work at all. I think it has something to do with the TVs not having comb filters?

So what kind of adapters and converter boxes would make he best solution for this? I saw this: AverMedia device and it seems to do what I need it to. Would this downscale it in a way the TV could display it?

I also saw some VGA--> 3 RCA cables. Those would be VGA--> component cables correct? The TVs do have a component input even though they're only SDTVs. How likely are those to work?

 

[MDE]

I'm surprised that the laptops themselves don't have S-Video out. Do the TVs by any chance have component inputs?

 

[Matthias99]

You need a real transcoder (like the one you linked) to turn VGA into anything else. As posted above, most laptops have an S-Video and/or composite (RCA) output. Of course, it will be much lower quality.

VGA->component "adapters" are for video cards that can use some of the VGA pins and output a native YPbPr (component) signal over them. You can't just use them with any VGA device.

 

[Fraggable]

Thanks for the responses finally.

They don't have S-video out. They have a little plastic plug over the spot where one would be, some variation of this model must have had one. The TVs do have component inputs, we're planning to use the component outputs from the transcoders.

We ordered one of the transcoder things, we're going to make sure it works before spending $500 on 6 of them.