I have a TV that makes a better monitor than my monitors. I could hook up the TV and computer at the same time but that means switching back and forth from one source to the next. I have like half a dozen monitors and, except for one, they are all VGA and mostly square in shape. I got this crazy idea to use my TV as a monitor and a monitor as a TV because that’s just the way my mind works.
I would have to use Composite wires– the yellow, red and white ones. There are wires that have VGA connectors on one end and Composite wires on the other, as in the picture below. These don’t work because there is no converter in between.
So, I decided to buy a converter.
Converters
I connected the composite wires to my cable box and the other end to the converter, then the VGA end to my monitor. And finally, the USB goes into my computer (the white one on the bottom). The USB one is for power. It works, except there is no sound. I don’t know why they even bother to put the red and white inputs there anyway because you cannot send sound through a VGA plug.
(Ed note: If you are interested in getting one of these gems, here is a link to an Amazon page that will give you a few choices.)
I have some wires stashed away here somewhere that have composite plugins on one end and ordinary stereo jacks on the other so I should be able to hook the sound from my cable box into the line-in jacks of my computer. So that’s how to use a VGA monitor as a TV.
This is a VGA monitor hooked up to my cable with the converter.
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Hi Terry,
A good tip for those who ‘didn’t know’.
I have had a 24″ VGA TV as a monitor for a couple of years as my regular system. This is connected by HDMI to my ‘smart TV for using a VPN.
I also have a Windows 7 computer with WiFi connected to an 8 year old 50″ VGA TV in a spare room and works fine.