Streaming Video on TV

 I'd like to watch, actually my girlfriend would, some of the multitude
of online video on the TV instead of the laptop.

Any experience or recommendations?

Jeff

  j wrote:


online video on the TV instead of the

The simplest approach is with a video card which has
HDMI out and a TV that can accept an HDMI input.

Some TVs can do the net by themselves too now.

 j wrote:


I have 1:1 pixel matching but in my case that was a PITA.

 

Yeah, lots.
I've been experimenting with this a lot.

Lots of different ways you can approch this.

1) You can just try to hook the laptop to the TV.  How this works out
for you will depend on how well matched the TV and laptop are.
You will find that there are both analog (composite, component,
S-video, VGA) and digital (DVI and HDMI) video connections. Obviously,
if you can connect to the same connector on both ends (HDMI -> HDMI,
VGA ->VGA, composit -> composit, etc) that would be best. But there
 are also ways to convert from one to another (S-video -> composite,
DVI -> HDMI, for instance).
Once you have made the conection, then the laptop has to create
the proper resolution video for a TV.
It can be done, but it can involve a lot of trial and error.

2) Buy a STB like the VUDU, Boxee, Netgear, Apple TV, Google TV.
My favorite of these is the BOXee. It is open and allows you to get
to any video on the internet.  The others are not.

3) Buy a BlueRay player.  But most of these are closed systems that
only allow you to watch only what the manufactuer allows (Netflix,
Vudu, Hulu, etc).

4) Buy a smart TV.  Some TVs have internet capability.

If you buy something, shop carefully.  Many of the STB solutions only
have HDMI outputs.  If you still have an older analoge TV, you won't
be able to make the hook up.  Also, verify what you have access to
(the whole net, or just the part that they let you see.)

There are a few other things you might want to look into.  I here
TIVO is trying out some internet features on their newer models.

 On 10/16/2011 9:14 PM, Gordon wrote:

I thought that there would be more available in USB to TV out (maybe
bandwidth issues), but I've been disappointed. And I see that syncing
the resolution of the laptop to an external monitor is no joy either. No
S Video out on my T61.


Thanks, I'm working my way through that list.

I hadn't heard of the Google TV. I've been looking at Roku. What
hardware are you running BOXee on? I'd been doing video capture/playback
back in '96, I would have thought the video playback to TV would have
been very good and cheap by now, maybe I'm missing it.

I see that now. Since I only have low def TV, I haven't had a use for
the Blue Ray. It's an odd but interesting feature and I can see what you
say about the hardware following the marketing, so to speak.

How about that!

Yeah, that's the case here. I think I'll give the Roku a try for my
girlfriend.