Watching TV Wirelessly

[edn88]

So my wife wants me to setup a TV of sorts in the kitchen, which is currently not wired for either cable or ethernet.

Was looking at a slingbox which would probably give me what I want, but wanted to know what others have done to get TV wirelessly in another room.

Does anyone know if Vista can do this (ie. if my computer in the den has a cable feed, can my laptop get access to this).

Thanks...

[ken0042]

I looked at this a number of years ago. Here's what I explored:

Slingbox. Issues are cost and size. Slingbox is at least $200. Then you need a computer or laptop in the kitchen to watch the TV on. So either you use a laptop (which would be costly) or a PC which would take up a bunch of space.

Jackrabbit. Basically it's a device that transmits composite video and audio wirelessly. Cost at the time was around $200, but I also read too many negative reviews regarding interference.

I ended up just running cables through my house. Main floor was pretty easy as the basement was undeveloped. Then for the 2nd floor I ran everything up to the attic through the chimney space, then down the respective walls into the rooms.

Even if you couldn't do it yourself, have you looked at what Shaw would charge you to run a cable line? Or a home theatre installation company? I would think that running a cable line would only cost a couple of hundred dollars, and if you get them to run 2 RG6 cables and 2 Cat 5e lines you are also set up for some future options.

Plus with running the cable lines you have made the kitchen TV "wife friendly."

[CubicleGeek]

There are wireless solutions for practically every standard out there - composite, s-video, component, and HDMI. Last that I checked none of them came cheap (especially the HD ones).

[Nancy]

The video sender devices will allow you to send a signal from a cable box or whatever, you will also need a remote control IR->RF tranceiver to transmit the remote control.

If you have MCE or Vista Media, you have some options like WebGuide to play or watch TV on a laptop. You may also be able to use the Xbox to do this, I don't have experience with that.

If you have MythTV, MCE, BeyondTV or Vista Media, you can buy the MediaMVP to watch your recordings. There are some hacks that will allow it to play live TV as well, but I don't have experience with them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauppauge_MediaMVP

Slingbox is the other choice, as mentioned.

[Hack&Lube]

Buy a USB TV tuner for a laptop or cheap computer and stick it in the kitchen.

[ken0042]

H&L- how would that bring the TV signals to the laptop? Aren't you essentially giving the laptop most of the same features of a TV; and the issue at hand here is getting the signals to that TV/laptop.

[GoFlambe]

I had various other people living with me a couple of years ago, so to give us all TV capabilities, I tried using GBPVR (which is free) on my main HTPC (has 5 tuners connected to Cable) to stream TV to various devices in my house (laptop, PC in an upstairs bedroom, etc). Worked okay, you just really needed a good quality 54G connection or better; I had a crappy router back in the day that would drop packets a lot so I had to increase the cache size on the client end to compensate. It added a 12 second delay on the client end as it buffered so live hockey didn't really feel "live" compared to radio or other options.

Since they've all moved out, I've stopped using that feature (it was kind of buggy too back then; it sometimes wouldn't release the signal once the client was done with it but that's probably fixed by now) but always thought it was cool.

Either way, the three key things you'll need are a good, clear and strong wireless connection (G or N; B is too slow for streaming raw video at 720x480 resolution without compression), some way of getting the TV signal into the "server" computer, and finally, some way to watch it remotely (i.e. some other kind of computer). In my case, I have two dual-tuner TV cards and one single-tuner TV card plugged into my main HTPC.

So there are ways to do this, and with free software to boot. At the very least, you'd probably still have to buy some kind of hardware for the server end; either a TV card or another solution like Slingbox.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by ken0042

H&L- how would that bring the TV signals to the laptop? Aren't you essentially giving the laptop most of the same features of a TV; and the issue at hand here is getting the signals to that TV/laptop.

Sorry, I forgot to mention the details due to a brain lapse but GoFlambe has elaborated somewhat on what I meant. Some of these tuners allow you to broadcast over your wireless network. I used to have a tuner on a computer by the cable modem. I had a cable splitter and so had one cable going to the modem for internet and another cable for TV going into the tuner. I would then set it it to broadcast over the wireless network which my laptop could pick up elsewhere in the house and even change channels, etc.

Perhaps this would be a little clumsy though but at least you have channel control. The other solutions like a wireless media broadcaster gives you less control.

[edn88]

Thanks to all for the suggestions. I went to Bestbuy this AM and got a SlingProHD, which seems to do the trick. A little more than what I probably need, but some of the options (such as being able to watch TV while we are away from home, or even connect up a video camera) might actually be handy once we are travelling.

Setup of the Slingbox was rediculously easy and am watching NFL playoff game on the laptop right now.

Next step - figure out how to setup internet access to the slingbox...

[keratosis]

I use Tversity. I have a computer with a Haupage tuner, a wireless router
and an Xbox hooked up to a TV in the Kitchen.
Works a treat.