<p>No, VGA ports on a laptop are output only.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-11-12T06:06:10.770Z
2013-11-12T06:06:10.770Z
AJ Henderson
<p>To expand on AJ Henderson's answer, it would be extremely rare to find combined output/input ports for A/V on a computer, and certainly not combined input/output VGA. This is because the underlying technology to receive and process video is very different to that required to send it and uses high-frequency electronics which tend to be very picky about how they are laid out and connected. As a result adding both send and receive hardware to the same physical port is impractical, bordering on impossible. There are also implications of cost, naturally adding anything to a laptop that's not really needed by the majority of users will drive the price up, and nobody wants that!</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-11-13T01:27:15.583Z
2013-11-13T01:27:15.583Z
Sam M-G
<p>A few days ago I had a problem installing a video conferencing system, as I was unable to take the output of the codec display on a TV for some reasons. I was wondering could I have used the VGA port of the laptop as the display input just like that of a TV? If Yes how?</p>

<hardware><electronics>
Can the VGA port of the laptop be used as input port?
sk1
# Can the VGA port of the laptop be used as input port?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-11-12)

A few days ago I had a problem installing a video conferencing system, as I was unable to take the output of the codec display on a TV for some reasons. I was wondering could I have used the VGA port of the laptop as the display input just like that of a TV? If Yes how?

**Tags:** hardware, electronics


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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2013-11-12. Score: 3

No, VGA ports on a laptop are output only.


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### Answer by username_2 on 2013-11-13. Score: 2

To expand on username_1's answer, it would be extremely rare to find combined output/input ports for A/V on a computer, and certainly not combined input/output VGA. This is because the underlying technology to receive and process video is very different to that required to send it and uses high-frequency electronics which tend to be very picky about how they are laid out and connected. As a result adding both send and receive hardware to the same physical port is impractical, bordering on impossible. There are also implications of cost, naturally adding anything to a laptop that's not really needed by the majority of users will drive the price up, and nobody wants that!


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