Hello,

I should be really grateful for any assistance you can help with with conncting my Samsung UE40F5300AK smart TV to PC. The TV has scart, Compnent, USB and HDMI connections and my PC has HDMI and USB connections.

I'd be grateful for any help and cables I'd need.

Thanks in advance,.

PC HDMI to TV HDMI.

Job done.

Or at least if every works as it should it really is that simple.

I am assuming here that you want to effectively use the TV screen as a monitor to view stuff you are doing on the PC.

Though your thread title does sort of imply you want to be able to view whatever the TV is doing on the PC which is a whole other world of potential grief.

Simplest option is to connect pc to tv using an hdmi cable. Then you set tv to display hdmi source. You may need to set pc to display same screen as pc.

Assuming you have wifi, you may be able to wirelessly cast /c to tv if tv has built in miracast capability (as well as pc). Bit slow for games, but fine for watching videos.

Another good solution is to install a Chromecast dongle for wireless casting.

Thank you for your help, Oilman and Chrisj

Indeed, I am looking to be able to view whatever the TV is doing on the PC. Hopefully not the biggest pain in the neck!

OK so if I read that correctly you don't want to use the TV as a monitor but to send whatever is being displayed on the TV screen to your PC?

In which case I fear it is going to end in tears.

You may as well buy a USB Freeview dongle for the PC as that will likely achieve the same effect. With most modern TVs the only video output from it is via the SCART socket. And that is only likely to be the signal from the built in tuner regardless of what is actually being displayed.

What that means is that if you are sat there watching a movie on your Blu-Ray player all you will get on the PC is Coronation Street on ITV or whatever is on the last Freeview channel you tuned to.

I fear it is going to be a waste of time and effort if you really want the TV image on the PC at the same time rather than the other way round which in most cases is much easier.

Thanks, chrisjr

Yes - I want to send whatever is being displayed on the TV screen to your my PC, which is actually SkY+ recordings from the Sky+ box

Then you don't need the TV. Buy a video capture device for the PC and connect that to the Sky box SCART socket.

With suitable software on the PC (which may be included with the capture device) you can then view whatever channel the Sky box is set to or playback a recording and see it on the PC.

Obviously there are some limitations. You can only watch in SD resolution even if the channel you are tuned to or the recording being played back is HD. You are somewhat limited by the length of cable between SCART socket and PC. So may not be suitable if Sky box and PC are at opposite ends of the house. If the intention is to copy stuff off the Sky box hard drive to the PC hard drive then you can only do it in real time, ie a 1 hour programme will take 1 hour to copy and again will only be SD whether the original is SD or HD.

The best technology to watch sky box on pc is a slingbox which takes scart output from skybox and transmits over wifi to pc or a tablet, mobile phone etc (only one at a time though).

You can even watch it over the internet if you have a reasonable upload speed.

This is obviously dearer (£110 upwards new) than a simple video capture card, but a lot less hassle, and very flexible. You can change sky channels remotely as well from pc or mobile phone, tablet. One of best purchases I made (got my slingbox solo off ebay - currently around £50 second hand).

Your question has gone from being really simple to being very difficult. There are all sorts of reasons why Sky makes this almost impossible.

How about a NOW TV subscription?

Thank you both for your very useful responses.
At least it's achievable.