# Using a 16:9 screen with a 4:3 laptop



## oigle (Dec 26, 2010)

Have an old 4:3 Toshiba laptop and wish to connect it to a large 16:9 Panasonic plasma TV. Have connected it with a vga cable. 
Problem No. 1. TV will not recognise PC in its source function. A smaller LCD Samsung TV recognises it OK. Is this an issue with plasma versus LCD?
Problem No. 2. Presuming I can get around NO.1 above, how do I set the correct screen resolution? The laptop only has 4:3 resolutions in its settings. I can choose 16:9 screen size ratio through the VLC media player but cannot find anywhere to choose different resolutions.
Any clever people who can steer me down the right track here?


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## Anthony (Oct 5, 2006)

1. The plasma/lcd would not be the issue. Might be an input format that the first TV did not recognize and therefore, did not display.

2. I had similar troubles with my Sanyo Z4 projector. I ended up getting a "driver" file for it that was pretty much just a list of valid resolutions and refresh rates. I'm not sure of the format, but it worked. When I plugged in the projector, I set up drivers and resolution for that output and it syncs now. Hopefully someone will have something similar for the plasma TV.

Good luck.


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## Guest (Jan 17, 2011)

You stated that the TV doesn't recognize the laptop as an input, does your laptop show the TV as a secondary device?

What laptop do you have/video card/OS? With any luck, you just need to update the driver. I forget how off the top of my head because I haven't had to do this in a really long time, but I'm pretty sure under the advanced properties for video under Windows, you can add a manual resolution for a device. [email protected] should be compatible, but at work, I've noticed that plasma TVs are a pain in the butt. Why they use them over LCD is beyond me.

Do you have plasma or LCD?


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## Infrasonic (Sep 28, 2010)

With the TV connected right click on the desktop go to properties and then click the settings tab - do you have two displays detected?

When the TV makes the "handshake" with the computer it *should* communicate the resolutions it is able to display in which case you'll be able to change the resolution for the TV in that menu.

If the laptop does not detect the TV you may want to check the manual for the TV to make sure it can accept an analog signal from a computer. Also updating the video card/motherboard drivers may help as someone suggested.


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## oigle (Dec 26, 2010)

Thanks guys. It is my daughters setup. Am going there tonight so will take your advice on board and try it out. I'll have another play.
As I said, the laptop works with a smaller LCD Samsung, just not with large Panasonic plasma. Tricky!!


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## Mike P. (Apr 6, 2007)

It may be the refresh rate you are sending to the TV.


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## oigle (Dec 26, 2010)

I'll check that too. Thanks.


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## oigle (Dec 26, 2010)

Have sorted it...silly really. Because my Samsung automatically recognised the PC and all other inputs, I wrongly assumed the Panasonic would also - just shows I am not enough of a geek... Went through all the menus in the Panasonic and eventually found that when the TV was installed, only 1 HDMI input for the DVD had been "activated" and everything else had been "skipped". Once I found it and activated the PC input, all started to happen OK. The vli media player gave me plenty of different ratio formats to choose from - Windows media player does NOT - , which was necessary given the different formats of the laptop and the TV, and we finally got the whole system working properly. Must say the 60" Panasonic plasma didn't handle the graphics as well as the 55" LED/LCD Samsung. More blurring in fast action. Still good though.
Still haven't totally sorted out the procedure for activating the external monitor function - got there but need to have a few goes to know "how" I got there. The Toshiba laptop allows PC/ext monitor or ext monitor/PC setting where the icons and all task bars etc move from one screen to the other. Bit annoying. My benq laptop allows both screens to show icons together. Much easier when shutting down after watching a movie on full screen on the ext monitor. Guess I'll sort it out with a few goes.
Thanks for all comments and help.


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## Infrasonic (Sep 28, 2010)

Glad you got it working - I didn't even think of the "skip" function!


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## oigle (Dec 26, 2010)

Yeah - me too!!! Every TV has its own setup. I was silly enough to assume differently.
At least I have an operative system. Just need to learn the most efficient way to make it all work now...Thanks.


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