Tuesday
Sep112012
Is your TV connected?
Tuesday, September 11, 2012 at 3:00AM Is your TV connected to other devices in your house or is it still a standalone unit? Mine is connected via Apple TV to the iPad and iPhone, but otherwise it is effectively a traditional TV set up.
Reader Comments (8)
I have just started getting into this media streaming concept.
I actually use an open source application called PS/3 Media Server, which obviously can serve the PS/3 wirelessly with video content from my laptop, but also to a variety of other devices, including our DLNA television.
The troublesome area so far is the transcoding. The media server does offer multiple methods are transcoding, to sometimes its a bit of trial and error to get the right method for smooth (and in sync) video.
Yes as per Shaun, but it also has wifi so it's gets all the Internet services too.
Standalone. Still running an old CRT TV and never been tempted to upgrade it.
Standalone, although connected to a ASUS media player with streaming capability.
I also have a VGA cable always connected in case I need to connect a laptop.
My living room HDTV comes with Netflix built-in, so its connected so we can watch Netflix on it. My Apple TV is connected to the HDTV in the kitchen.
Other than the normal A/V devices (Receiver, PVR, Blu-ray), the TV is not connected. The Blu-ray player is on the network and can play from the time capsule. But if I want to hook in the Mac or iPad, it's by cable. I know, so old-fashioned.
It's connected to my PC, so it's connected to the world :)
It's also connected to my S3, Prime and PS3.
It's not a smart TV but it doesn't need to be.
I thought about getting the just-released Samsung AllShare Cast Dongle but it's too limited for me; I'm better off with the HDMI connection.
living room TV is a panasonic plasma which does streaming off the file server using DLNA*, and it's connected to a PS3 which plays blurays, does iplayer & netflix and acts as a DVR using the PlayTV freeview adaptor, and sometimes even plays games!
dining room TV is a Sony which does streaming as well as BBC iplayer. Connected to it is a Sony bluray player which could do the same, but it'd be pointless to connect it to the network. Also connected to it is an Echostar FreeSatHD DVR which has Sling Media streaming features.
So, yes, I do use the fancy features on the TVs for streaming, but overall it's the bluray/dvd playback or regular TV broadcasts which are watched the most.
*to explain DLNA to Apple users, this is like air play only it's not proprietary :-P