When making the decision of how to connect your laptop or desktop PC to your computer you've probably considered a few different alternatives - VGA to HDMI, just a regular VGA cable (if your TV supports it), VGA to DVI, etc.

You probably didn't consider, though, outputting video from your computer through the USB port and connecting the other end directly in to your TV's HDMI input, giving you both video and audio in one easy connection.

Enter the USB to HDMI converter!

Which model is right for you?

Two major models of USB to HDMI adapters are out in the wild right now - those that require a separate audio cable to inject audio in to the video signal and those that rely on USB for both the audio and video out.

I know what you're thinking - if you can just worry about one cable instead of two why would anybody even consider using a separate audio cable? There is a slight tradeoff in terms of quality for the simplicity of using one cable.

Quality Differences

Carrying audio and video over one single USB connection is nice because of the simplicity, but it is also a more complicated conversion and requires some audio compression to squeeze all of the data and the video through the USB bus. What this means is that you will see a slight degradation in the audio - it is nothing major, though, and you probably won't even notice unless you are using professional audio equipment. If you are hooking it up to a couple of $25 speakers, you should save yourself the hassle and just use direct USB audio injection.

If you are an audiophile, however, you should definitely spring for the extra cable and buy the slightly more expensive USB to HDMI with a separate digital audio connection. (Then again, if you are a purist then the idea of carrying your video signal over USB in the first place is probably heresy). Theoretically, however, carrying the audio signal over a separate channel can also result in a slightly improved picture on the video as well as less compression is required to carry both signals.

 Before making the decision to connect your PC to your TV through a USB to HDMI converter you should consider:

Do you have an extra USB port to spare? If not you should pick up a cheap hub.

Does your TV have an HDMI-input? This is pretty ubiquitous these days but it won't hurt to check.

Will your content look good on a large TV? You shouldn't have any problem with the resolution from the USB to HDMI converter, but make sure the source video you are playing is a high enough resolution that it won't look really bad on a large TV.