there is no reason a DVI to HDMI cable or adapter would not work, whats important is that your PC detects that its a TV and outputs the proper resolution (1920 x 1080 60hz for a 1080p TV)
DVI-D and HDMI are the same connection, the difference is the connector used and HDMI has a few extra pins for audio and DVI has extra pins for legacy RGB analog output. If you have a good video card (nvidia or ATI/AMD) these cards will often detect a TV and automatically scale odd PC resolutions to a displayable one for the TV as in the case of say bios and boot screens on the PC etc. my 560 Ti does this automatically so when i boot my pc i can still use my TV to get into the bios etc.
I would avoid any VGA to HDMI converter because they are just that they have to convert the analog signal to digital and unless the converter costs as much as your TV it's likely to do a poor job, native VGA input on LCD TV's even are not always the best way as is the case with my Panasonic 37" S1 LCD TV I use as my main monitor on my PC, it will not accept HD resolutions over the VGA port and only takes common 4:3 PC resolutions like 1280 x 1024. not all TV's are like this of course but HDMI is ALWAYS the cleanest way to give a TV a signal peroid.
edit: just noticed you said laptop, if all its got is VGA out then a converter is your best path i guess as long as the laptop doesn't have a DVI/HDMI/display port or mini version of any of those on it unfortunately.
