Best friend just bought Toshiba laptop with built-in HD-DVD player-how to connect TV?

Picture will still be excellant with VGA. Colors may be your only sacrifice. Only other route would be to go with Toshiba port replicator that has DVI (digital) out (most port replicators and docking stations have both vga and dvi.)

The VGA cable should be fine.

I got an Acer laptop with HD DVD drive.. You should get a decent picture with VGA depending on the TV.. My Samsung is a bit softer on VGA..

That said, I also have a S-video and HDMI port and I prefer the HDMI... Try to figure out if his laptop has HDMI, it would be the best choice..

S-video is not capable of HD.

Pretty useless thread without the model of laptop and knowing connections are available on it and the TV.

vga (on tosh laptop) should work ok for time being but eventually content producers (studios) may start implementing (activating ?) the 'ict', or 'image constraint token' (which, as i understand it, is or will be encoded on disc) which alledgedly will not allow hd content to be transferred thru analog outputs including component and vga, only hdmi (dvi ?)

so, if at all possible, stick w hdmi output for future-proofing.

maybe have friend return and replace w hdmi model.

bump

i agree with the above post that if your friend wants to make the best use of the hd dvd drive, might be worth getting a model with an HDMI port... the Acer 5920G is a great deal and it has HDMI

If you like Toshiba, you may want to look at the Qosmio F45-AV425. I bought this one about a month ago and it has performed nearly flawlessly for me the entire time.

Compared to the P205 you listed, the F45 (which will cost about $500 more) has a faster processor, bigger hard drive, Vista Ultimate, integrated nVidia 8600 graphics, wireless N, and HDMI output. You lose the 17" screen, though, down to 15".

HD DVD playback is very smooth. I get about 5-10 seconds of slight stutter every 10 minutes or so of playback. Enough for me to notice, though my wife swore she couldn't see what I was talking about. This is whether I play it on the built in screen, or output to my HDTV. I have a Hitachi 50v500a, and am using a DVI-HDMI cable for connection. Image quality is VERY good.

Worth the look. As a bonus, the specific P205 you cited isn't eligible for Toshiba's 5 free HD DVD offer, whereas the F45 is.

I agree with the others, might as well future-proof now, rather than duplicating effort (and expense!) later on.

Good luck!
BW

All line up Toshiba notebook HD-DVD; all models have HDMI in x205 series:

http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/...ge=hddvdLaptop

I think newegg have a best price.