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You might think after buying your VGN FZ21S (or similar) and playing your free Spiderman 3 BD disc on your HD ready TV will be simply Plug and Play. Think again.
Connecting to an external HD ready display.
To set up an external TV (mine is a SONY KDL-40X2000) you may have to first set up the Laptop’s (NVIDEA) Control Panel to enable an external display.
A few tips:
Select the external display as the only screen to view playing BD discs. Do not try to share the display with your laptop.
Crank up the external display resolution as high as it will go, and select 60Hz. This will give you the best chance of reaching 1080p (as I did successfully).
Once you reach utopia with the settings save them as a profile (use PROFILES on the Main MENU above).
Thereafter when you plug the HDMI between the Laptop and TV (before switching both on) everything should sort itself out nicely (albeit technology is a strange thing). If you obtain sound from your TV connection then count your blessings and be thankful, but remember the sound quality will only be good as your TV settings and TV speakers permit. This is because there is a crunch to this story. The laptop only produces stereo- even if your BD disc and the HDMI cable are capable of delivering the most advanced standards of picture and sound quality!
If you are happy with the sound then just enjoy- after all Blu-Ray HD pictures are breathtaking. 
If you don’t get any sound from your TV then refer to AUDIO below.
Hint: If the TV does not automatically load to your preferences (small picture etc) then use the keyboard or mouse to load your saved profile via the TV screen.
Note: When finished viewing you should find that unplugging the HDMI or turning the TV off, should bring your laptop back to life.
AUDIO.
Buying a Laptop with Blu-Ray and HDMI should have met all my HD expectations but thanks to SONY and a dumb (or whatever) salesperson you are actually buying a Rolls Royce with paraffin in the tank, or a high speed racing boat with only a sail.
If you have a home theatre system then be prepared to be disappointed. However, not all home systems will include my SONY AV receiver (STR-DA1200ES) that I suspect is, in one very small part, a weak link in the chain, so here are the additional settings that should (in theory) enable you to obtain a limited form of multi-channel audio.
However, the downside is that the Laptop has only two speakers and after a month long investigation, Sony engineers report it is only capable of delivering Stereo to it’s own two speakers, or the headphone socket, or to the HDMI connection!
Now, as customers, we know that an HDMI socket and cable should deliver the best of VIDEO (up to 1080p) and the best of AUDIO (up to DOLBY HD and it’s army of followers). However, SONY sells us an apparently FULL 1080 product with HDMI but doesn’t tell us it only delivers half the package. 
If you wish to try your AV receiver to see if you can squeeze more than one audio channel through HDMI to your AV receiver (hat’s all I managed) then - first connect your HDMI cable to your laptop and then use another HDMI to connect the receiver output to your TV input.
1. You need to divert sound to the HDMI outlet so go to VISTA Control PANEL-SOUND (or right click the speaker icon in the task bar) where you will find two AUDIO CODECS. The headphone/speaker CODEC now needs turning off but first you want to be able to easily re-enable it, so RIGHT CLICK and select enable SHOW DISABLED DEVICES and SHOW DISCONNECTED DEVICES- first. Afterwards, right click headphone/speaker Codec again and select DISABLE. The small speaker icon in the task bar will produce a red cross. Don’t forget when you want your laptop sound back again, simply go to the speaker icon, and right click, go to PLAYBACK DEVICES and re-enable this codec.
2. The HDMI Codec is greyed out if HDMI is not connected. So attach the HDMI cables as aforementioned and switch everything on.
3. Right click to select the (now visible) HDMI Codec then click to open PROPERTIES (bottom right of the window).
4. Open the SUPPORTED FORMATS TAB. Select all the encoded formats. Do not bother testing these. Also select 48Hz (only) in the SAMPLE RATES window. Don’t bother testing this either.
5. Now go to your TV and using the MENU turn off TV sound output.
6. Return to the Laptop and test the ADVANCED sample rates. You should find that both 16 and 24bit (48Hz) sample rates work.
7. Play a BD disc.
Good Luck!
Laptop VGN FZ21S
VISTA ULTRA
SONY TV KDL-40X2000
Home theatre amp STR-DA1200ES
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