Pretty straight forward thread.

I'm trying to learn all the ways to stream videos from my PC/Laptops/hard drives to televisions.

For years I've connected my PC/Laptops directly to a television and changed the display settings to use the Television as a monitor. The picture has always been quite distorted...

How many different ways are there to stream video directly off my PCs onto televisions?

I know there is a "Sling Box", but maybe it can be described better here. Is this what I'm looking for?

If I have a slingbox, what does this actually allow me to do? Can I download movies and then open them up with VLC or a dvix player and stream them directly on my television? If I put in a blue-ray disc into my computer, can I stream it to my television? Do this set up require certain software to be used? Sorry if these are stupid questions.

Are there better solutions than Sling Box?

How much does a set up cost?

Looking for as much insight as possible.

Thanks!

 

the sling box is intended to do the opposite of what you want. with the sling box, you can stream your tv (cable/satellite) to your computer over the internet.

what you want is something like apple tv, wdtv, etc. the xbox 360 and ps3 can do streaming also.

 

Really?

I have both PS3 and 360 - How would I set something like this up?

What is the best possible solution? One of these apple tv/wdtvs?

Would I be able to play high quality videos without losing quality? HD streaming etc?

Also, would I be able to stream music off my computer by doing this?

Thanks again

 

with the 360 and ps3, you need to download the streaming software. i think it's pretty cheap - like $20. i personally have never used either device to stream media, but i heard that both do the job fairly well.

i have an apple tv. i like it because it's an apple product and integrates seamlessly with my imac and macbook and itunes. it allows you to stream both video and music, but you have to link it to a computer and have itunes running. you can also sync media to the hard drive (either 40GB or 160GB). if you hack it, you can also stream hulu. you can also buy and rent movies from itunes directly with an internet connection. the problem is that your video has to be encoded with h.264 and you are limited to 720p.

the wdtv plays many more formats and i believe it will play full 1080p, but you can't network the unit. you have to plug in a portable hardrive. for me, this is a pain if you're constantly updating your library.

 

It's hard to beat the interface and seamless integration of Apple tv.

 

So with WDTV I basically will be running around with hard drives constantly? But I will be able to play 1080P... That doesn't sound too bad... Especially since I will have an infinite amount of space...

Will also look into the PS3 and 360 ways...

Thanks again guys

 

I use the Xbox 360. It's free to set up if you have a Windows PC and the 360. I run everything off a wireless network so it took all of about 10 minutes to get it running.

Xbox.com | Connect the Xbox 360 Console to this Computer
Play Media on Your Xbox 360 Console | Zune.net - User's Guide

On top of that, I use the Logitech Harmony remote for the 360 so all the buttons are right there already:

 

There are a number of options for 360 media streaming.

Check out PlayOn or TVersity.

I use PlayOn personally because it's got an interesting plug-in feature and a reasonably active community of developers around it. A friend of mine likes TVersity, but I could never get it working on my (slightly strange) network setup.

You can also just stick with Windows Media Center and setup the 360 as a media center Extender. I'd have liked to go this route, but I found the interface lag to be more frustrating than it was worth.

 

if you're looking for something mobile, get an ipod with the a/v adapter. each of my kids have a 32GB touch and they can plug them into any tv when we're out and about.

 

I know this is "old", but I just got a WD-TV yesterday.

The damn thing works great! My TV isn't HD so I can't tell you how it performs in 1080, but it reads everything I have on my hard drive except the funkiest formats that are tough to read even from a computer (namely .flv and .m2ts). Read .mkv perfect, and the usual mpg, mpeg, avi, obviously.

I was skeptical (I mean ... how could it do everything I want it to?) and ready to bring it back ... but I love it.

Oh sure, sometimes the browsing could be a bit faster, but it's no big deal overall.

Lack of network is no biggie so far ... I'll just refill the HD every so often.