how to use a laptop for monitor ?

R

ryvac

Veteran
I have an old laptop that's useless so I was thinking of throwing it away.
but before I do that I just thought if I can use it as a monitor for my DVX?

I've searched a little and it seems like conecting it with a firewire works the best but it doesn't have a firewire input and I don't want to spend money on it so can I still do it with a laptop that doesn't have a firewire input????

I've tried conecting it with the video output (yellow wire) but I don't know if that would even work so are there any suggestions?

these are the oly in/out puts I have
P1010088.jpg
 
You are right, you don't need to spend money on it... just Discard it away.

It is absolutelly useless to monitor HD!

But you can buy a new Laptop and On location software... this is the best HD monitor, Digital recorder, Wave form monitor, vetorscope... etc. a beauty!!!
 
you will still need to run some sort of software to take the input and display it, but if the laptop has a PCMCIA slot, you can get a firewire card pretty cheap <$30.
 
thanks for the inputs.
I think I can download a free software so I might do it.
by the way, is a PCMCIA slot look like this? if not, I don't think I hae a PCMCIA slot.. so is there anothere way of doing it ???
P1010077.jpg
 
Yep, that looks like a couple of PCMCIA slots alright.

Let me know if you get this working. I've got an old laptop I'd like to do the same with.
 
thanks guys,
I don't know the diffrence of the PCMCIA slots & ExpressCard slots but
this is like 7 years old so I don't think anything "Express" should be in it...

anyway, I will give it a try and find out.
thanks
 
Before throwing the laptop away take into consideration that it will run teleprompter software just fine if it can handle at least mirror monitor out which I sure it will. If your going to ever need one you need a laptop or desktop to run it, unless you always rent. I made a very nice one for less than a $100 that works great.
 
thanks for another idea.
I will keep that in mind too.

by the way, thanks for caring about my laptop. I don't think I will thow it away anymore.
after it's been useless (virus) it's been sitting in the closet forever, so I just thought I'll give it a try to use it for whatever.
the only problem is that it takes like 20 minutes to start the power and takes every 10 minutes to open up any kind of software or page...
well, you get the idea...(when your computer has virus)
 
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I notice from your pics that the laptop has the little yellow analog video jack. Is that only an output jack? I wonder if it is also for input?

Did the laptop come with ANY kind of software that might do video capture? Even Windows MovieMaker?
 
ryvac said:
after it's been useless (virus) it's been sitting in the closet forever, so I just thought I'll give it a try to use it for whatever.
the only problem is that it takes like 20 minutes to start the power and takes every 10 minutes to open up any kind of software or page...
well, you get the idea...(when your computer has virus)
Click to expand...

That could get frustrating...how about a fresh install/recovery? Just install the program(s) you absolutely need.
 
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