How can I play films from my laptop on my tv?

[wellthatsdoneit]

My laptop doesn't have a hdmi socket, or an s-video (I think that's what it's called). It has a VGA socket and usb ports.

My tv doesn't have anything because, er, I haven't bought it yet, but I assume it will have hdmi, usb, scart and s-video and whatever else is standard these days.

Basically I have lots of avi format films on my laptop and don't want the hassle of converting them into dvd format and having endless dvd's.

Do I need one of these things? How do they work? Can I attach my laptop to it or do I have to buy a portable hardrive?
www.amazon.co.uk/Cyclone-Micro-MultiMedia-Player-Adaptor/dp/B00534L3B8/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=HNPB0WXNTWXB&coliid=I1KN5W4Q1509XK

I'm very stuck and I know nothing!

TIA

By some weird coincidence that's my gadget.

I also have a small 500gb drive which holds the family's media collection. I connect the drive to the Cyclone. I then connect the Cyclone to the tv via the S Video. That's it.

If you tv has a usb connector then you don't need the Cyclone since the tv can directly read the contents of your drive.

The combo is so small that I take it on holidays (keeps DCs happy if its raining outside)

My TV (brought about a year ago) has a PC Input Socket - a VGA connection. So I can link my old laptop (which has VGA out) to the TV screen.

So as you have not brought the TV yet, how about buying one which has a lot of different options in terms of inputs? Mine has VGA, HDMI, SCART, S-Video, it has a USB port (not sure what that's for) and an Ethernet port - it streams iPlayer, though I do wonder what else it may be able to do with that.

Do you care that much about picture quality? The difference between some of these connection methods are to do with quality - HDMI for example is a digital connection, where as s-video and scart are analogue.

The TV screen may be able to display 1080p resolution but your AVIs are probably not that high a resolution. They may only be 640x480, or 320x240. So expanding them up to a big screen may not make them look that good.

The usb is so you can plug in a memory stick or hard disk and watch content from there.

As for resolution, I watch stuff on my 40inch and it looks great. AVI files are not inherently of a lesser resolution. That is set by the person capturing the file in the first place. If one was so inclined, one can rack up the resolution to HD.