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What's the most basis thing we should know when connecting lap top to the TV large screen projectors?

Laptops and Projectors: How to,Tips and Hints By Computer knowledge Blog.

Lap-top is protable compare to desktop home PC ,since it is easy to carry around ,it can use as a presentation tool too.This section will help you learn how this takes place and how to make your laptop work with "projectors".

Because there are literally thousands of laptop configurations, models, screen sizes and screen resolutions out there, we cannot know how each laptop works.

Please understand that the information presented here is no substitute for reading your instruction manual, testing beforehand or a hands-on training. Spending 30 minutes testing the equipment BEFORE any presentation can save you a lot of time.

How to use an lap top to work with TV projectors

Before you get stated, you gonna need to know these stuffs:

* know your laptop's display requirements.
* know your laptop's resolution requirements.
* Know how to configure your ethernet adapter for the Internet (we do not have information on IP addresses).
* Always have a backup plan.

Attaching your computer to TV projectors:
You attach a VGA cable FROM the laptop to the projector or console.

The cable attaches to your laptop via the EXTERNAL MONITOR port on the back of your laptop:

Important note: Some laptops like the Sony Vaio, the Apple iBook, Powerbooks and MacBookPro do not have standard VGA monitor connectors. Make sure you have any adapters or docking ports with you or you will not be able to connect to the consoles.

And the standard VGA connection show like below.This is the monitor out connector on the back panel of a Apple G3. The connection on a PC is identical.  



This is a standard VGA cable connector.

 

These are the steps  in which you do things:

1. Connect the VGA cable from the laptop to the projector or console.
2. Turn on the PROJECTOR, let it warm up and select the proper COMPUTER input using the MODE or INPUT button on the remote control.
3. Turn on your computer LAST. (Never rely on your laptop's battery. It will fail you. Always bring your AC Adapter.)

This is important because when you turn on your lap top, it will search all the ports and connectors to vertife what's hooked up to it. So theoretically, the computer will know there is a projector connected and send the signal that dispaly on the screen out to the projector. 

But (there's always a but) what do you do when it doesn't send the signal to the projector? 

ALWAYS CHECK THIS FIRST: Is the projector's input set to the correct COMPUTER input? If it is, try the following:

For PC users: If you get an image on the laptop screen but not on the projector, check the following:

1. On your laptop's keyboard, find the key marked "FUNCTION" (usually on the lower left corner of the keyboard).
2. Then, search for a key that has either the letters "LCD/CRT" or a little monitor icon. Most often, it will be in the top row of keys marked F1 through F12, but not always.
3. When you have both keys located, press the FUNCTION key and then the LCD/CRT key that you located before. It might take a couple of seconds for the computer to react.
   This should toggle the screen image through a cycle like this:  Image on Laptop Screen | Image on Projector | Image on Both

So if you press the "Function F" key sequence once, you'll get an image on the projector, but your laptop screen will go black. Press the key sequence again and you'll see the image through the projector and on your laptop. (This information will be in your laptop's instruction manual.)
For MAC users OS X:
The instructions for setting your display and mirroring preferences are available in two formats: HTML and PDF.
Know your laptop! Read the manual and carry it with you. Always do a dry run before your class starts to work out any bugs.

SCREEN RESOLUTIONS:
Screen resolution affects what you see projected and how it looks. This will be important if you use fine, detailed images and text.

The back story: When desktop computers were first introduced, the monitors all had the same resolution: 640 pixels wide by 480 pixels high.
Today, monitors and computers have advanced to the point where many different resolutions are possible from 640x480 up to 1920x1200 pixels. So-called "standard" resolutions are: 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768. Anything else is going to cause problems with a projector.

(Just to confuse you further, some older laptops can only display 800x600 pixels using the laptop's screen, but can output to a video projector a 1024x768 resolution image. Laptops can even split the display so half the desktop is in the laptop's screen, the other half is sent to the video projector. Yikes. See why we recommend testing it first?)

To add to the fun, with some older or less expensive laptops, the electronics that control the display may not be powerful enough to send the computer's signal to the laptop screen and to a projector at the same time. This means you will have to shut off the laptop screen to get an image on a projector.

Standard TV projectors can display up to 1024x768 (higher resolutions will be compressed down to 1024x768).
So, what does this mean for you?

In a nutshell: If your laptop has a non-standard display, the laptop screen and the projector image may not match. For example, users of the Toshiba 8300 will note that the native resolution on the laptop is 1400x1050. That will cause all sorts of problems with our consoles. When you change the setting to 1028x1024, the laptop screen has black bars on the sides. This is normal. The same thing happens with Apple's G4 15" Powerbooks.

So what should you do? TEST it before you need it. Get into your classroom and try it before your first class. 

One more thing... Set your color to 16-bit (Windows users). Some laptops won't mirror if the color is set to 32-bit.

References:
http://www.sfsu.edu/