Can I play Blu Ray from computer to TV?

I am looking at the Sony VGN-FW378J/B. One of the features I like about it is the Blu Ray. I rent mostly Blu Ray from Netflix as I have the PS3 and can watch them. My girlfriend doesn't so I figure I am in the market for a new notebook, I may as well get the Sony with Blu Ray and HDMI and I can take it to her house and watch Blu Ray on her TV through my laptop. I didn't think anything of it until I was listening to a computer show where they said that some computers won't allow you to play the Blu Ray through the TV. They called it "mirroring" I believe. Either something in the hardware and DVD protected it from playing on the TV.

So My question is, has anybody hooked their Sony notebook to their TV through the HDMI cable and played a Blu Ray movie? And if it did work how was the quality?

Thank you

 

It works perfectly fine with HDMI. Very good quality - depends on the TV you watch it on.

 

Instead of mirroring or cloning, you have to set the computer to display on only the TV. Not on both tv and laptop at the same time. All computers have that restriction not just Sony.

 

If your gf has a hdtv, why doesn't she buy her own blu ray player?

 

I'm a newbe here and to laptops so please don't flame me to hard. How do you do this? i just bought this sony yesterday ( the one the first poster was questioning) Thanks for any help.

 

It would be a waste for her. She rarly watches TV to begin with. Movies just when I am over and she falls asleep halfway through them anyways! It's really just for me to watch when I am there and she falls alseep since I am a Night Owl.

My Dell laptop is about 5 years old so I am in the market for a new one anyways. May as well kill 2 birds with 1 stone and get one I can play my Blu Ray on...

 

Thanks for the replys. I was pretty sure it could be done. I do it with my Dell for standard DVD's. I play them on the overhead projector through the monitor connection. But I just happened to hear the computer show saying some of the new technology is making it so you can only watch them on the computer and not on the TV. Nice to know you can with the Sony..

 

Set your TV to accept input from what ever HDMI port you are going to use. The button to do this is in your TV or TV remote. You will probably get a no input error from the TV for a while since you have not connected the computer yet. Turn off TV. Turn off computer. Plug in the HDMI to both tv and computer. Turn on TV. Turn on computer. Hopefully, on booting up, your computer will take you to the New Display found screen where it will ask you how you want to set it up. You want to display on only the external monitor (not mirror or cloned and not extended) After you are displaying on only the TV, you can put the blu-ray disc in and play it, or reboot and let the computer autorun the movie.


Hope that works for you. I don't have a new Sony so I don't know what exact steps you will need. The above works for most computers.

You can also get to the new display screen (in vista) by right clicking the desktop(after you have both the tv and computer connected)>personalize>look in the left hand column and click connect to a projector or external display>connect display. This should bring up the options for cloning,extending, or displaying on only the external display.

Most computers also have the option to change how you are displaying by clicking on one of the f keys repeatedly. This changes how the display shows, on laptop, on external or on both. The proper fn key will probably have 2 small squares on it representing screens. On my computer it is f4. Might be a different f key for you.

 

Thanks Cat mom i will give it a try this weekend!

 

If the OP's Sony notebook is anything like mine he should not need to turn off or reboot his notebook. If he gets a sound when he plugs in the TV to the notebook he can simply select the TV in the graphics card multi-display panel.