Best way to watch iTunes video on a tv?

Factual Questions
1

I’ve got a few shows I’ve purchased and downloaded from iTunes. Sure, I can watch them on my computer, or put them on my video iPod and watch them there.

However… I’d like to sit in my living room and watch them on a TV. I know there’s various devices out there that will either hook up my iPod to my TV. Is there anything that will let me go right from my laptop (where iTunes lives) to my TV? Is it even worth it, or with the quality be crap? Can I do it without spending a ton of money?

If the answer to some of those questions is “yes”, can someone recommend a doohickey to do it? There’s a ton out there and I see varying reviews of how good they are.

For the record, these are legally downloaded videos and I’m looking for a legal way for me to watch them. I’m not looking to do anything that would violate a copyright or is otherwise illegal. I just wanna watch “Sheep in the Big City” on my bigscreen TV.

2

Apple has just come out with a product that will do exactly that, called the Apple TV. It connects and synchronizes with your iTunes library wirelessly. The quality will be just as good as it is on iTunes.

http://www.apple.com/appletv/

It is kind of pricey, though. $299.

What kind of TV and laptop do you have? It may also be possible to hook your laptop up to it directly. If your TV is a HDTV, it may have a DVI or HDMI input. If your laptop is fairly high-end, it may have an S-Video output.

Failing that, for around $50 you can find converters that will let you connect your computer to your TV, even if the ports don’t match up. But they won’t have the ease of use of the Apple TV (remote, wireless, etc.)

3

TV is not HDTV, it’s an old big screen - maybe 10 or 15 years old (it came with the house, so I’m not sure when it was new).

Laptop is a low end Sony Vaio.

That AppleTV thing looks cool, but it says it only works with a widescreen TV. Not gonna go buy a TV just to watch my cartoons!

4

Screw these high tech solutions. Does your TV have an S-Video port? Ignore the diagrams, this is what the S-video port on your computer and your TV will look like. If so, just run down to Target and pick up a $5 s-video cable and you can plug it in directly to your TV.

That will only take care of your video, however, and you’ll have to worry about sound some other way. You’ll most likely want something like this, also available anywhere computer stuff is sold. Hell, they might even be sold at Walgreens.

5

Here ya go…

That’ll be the cheapest and easiest way.

6

No S-Video on laptop. All it has is a VGA output.

7

You’d probably want something like this then. I’m not too sure how great the picture quality would be, but it should be more than adequate, and the advantage to playing straight from your computer rather than your ipod is that your computer’s got more horsepower and can play formats not supported by the iPod, such as DivX and WMV.