Drawing PC, TV and Stereo Into an Entertainment Loop

[DudeAsInCool]

Drawing PC, TV and Stereo Into an Entertainment Loop

October 23, 2003
By JOHN R. QUAIN

When it comes to storing digital photos, editing video and
downloading music files, computers are useful tools. But
compared with even a modest home entertainment system, a
computer is terribly inadequate when you want to display
photos, play a movie or listen to music.

So what can you do? Wirelessly beam the photos, music, and
video from your PC to your TV and stereo.

If you have a wireless home network of the sort that allows
PC's to share an Internet connection or a printer, a number
of new devices - from dedicated boxes called media
receivers to certain DVD players and even video game
consoles - can connect to that network. Your TV displays a
listing of your PC's music or pictures or video; with a
push of a remote-control button, you can grab those digital
computer files and convert them into signals that your home
entertainment system can play. Typically, a complementary
program on the computer serves up the files while the
material stays on your computer.

The key to making this work is the wireless networking
standard called Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi connections are fast enough to
permit slide shows of digital pictures on a TV or play
songs from your PC on a stereo system without stutters or
hiccups. But to send video from your PC to your TV for
high-quality playback, you need a wireless network that
supports the latest and fastest Wi-Fi standard, 802.11g (or
"g" for short).

The most common version of Wi-Fi is 802.11b, which sends
information back and forth at a maximum speed of 11
megabits per second. Devices using the 802.11g standard can
communicate with older 802.11b equipment but reach speeds
nearly five times as fast.

Media Receivers

The most straightforward and inexpensive way to get
PC-based music and photos to your TV is to use a dedicated
media receiver like the Linksys WMA11B Wireless Digital
Media Adapter (about $150; more information is available at
www.linksys.com), the Hewlett-Packard ew5000 Wireless
Digital Media Receiver ($200; www.shopping.hp.com) or the
Prismiq Media Player ($250; store.prismiq.com). In my case,
I connected each to a Microsoft MN-700 Wireless Base
Station ($89,
http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/br...s.aspx?pid=002), the heart of my 802.11g network. Similar
wireless "g" routers are available from Netgear and
Linksys.

The Linksys model proved to be the simplest way of joining
the computer and home entertainment worlds. To set up the
adapter - a process that included telling it the name of my
network and typing in a lengthy security code - I had to
connect it to my network using an Ethernet cable;
thereafter the connection is wireless. A supplied Linksys
program on the computer let me select music files (in MP3
and WMA formats) and pictures to share with my home
theater, and then I plugged the adapter into my home stereo
using the supplied audio and video cables.

I was quickly able to display a slide show of pictures of
my 10-month-old daughter on the TV while playing Peter
Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill" from the PC's hard drive.
Unfortunately, the Linksys box couldn't handle video clips
because it uses the slower 802.11b standard, although a
spokeswoman said the company was working on a faster "g"
model.

Hewlett-Packard's ew5000 worked in much the same fashion. I
didn't have to use a wired connection to make the initial
settings, but again the media receiver used the older "b"
Wi-Fi standard, so it was limited to playing music and
flashing photos from my computer on the TV screen.

To see how video clips from my computer would look on the
living room's big screen, I tried the Prismiq Media Player.
It can grab photos, music and video from a computer as well
as let you surf the Internet on the television screen. To
make the wireless connection, however, you have to add a
Wi-Fi PC card that plugs into the back of the Prismiq box.
The company recommends a $70 Netgear model that supports
the faster "g" standard.

The Prismiq box worked well enough for viewing photos and
playing music off the computer. When it came to the more
challenging tasks, like playing video and using e-mail
online, the results were mixed. Video clips from the
computer, for example, often started to skip near the end
or develop blocky distortions when I blew them up to
full-screen size. And using a conventional TV (as opposed
to a digital high-definition set) to cruise Web pages means
that the text can be fuzzy, though legible.

The setup lets you check out local weather forecasts, movie
listings and stock quotes online. With the
picture-in-picture feature on your TV, you can also send
instant messages to friends online while watching, say, a
football game. (If you anticipate browsing the Web and
sending e-mail from your television, the $50 Prismiq
wireless keyboard is a useful accessory.)

Video Players

While dedicated media receivers do the job, they are still
computer-centered devices that lack the familiarity of home
stereo and television equipment. So it's not surprising to
see a growing trend to add wireless networking features to
electronic devices.

Gateway's Connected DVD Player ($200,
www.gateway.com/home/ce/dvd.shtml), for example, looks like
a standard DVD player but has Wi-Fi "b" connectivity. It
comes with software that you install on your PC, allowing
the player to present music, photos and video files from
your computer on your television.

It, too, has limitations. When viewing photos, you cannot
rotate the image with the Gateway remote control. Because
of the Gateway's slower wireless speed, video also suffers
from breakups and distortions, and the device had trouble
accepting certain network settings.

So while DVD players with built-in Wi-Fi need a little more
polish, the benefit of connecting some devices to your
computer seems obvious. Witness TiVo's digital video
recorders, which have recently added wireless "b" network
support. (Some other recorders, like ReplayTV, offer more
limited versions of this feature.)

To connect the TiVo to your home network, you need to
download the TiVo Home Media Option software ($99,
www.tivo.com). That's on top of the initial $250 price tag
for a TiVo Series2 model with 40 hours of recording time
and a $12.95 monthly fee. Furthermore, you have to add a
Wi-Fi adapter. (I connected a Series2 DVR to my network
using an external $70 Linksys adapter that plugged into the
TiVo's U.S.B. port.)

That may seem a lot to pay just to have wireless access to
MP3 music files (it doesn't work with Microsoft's WMA music
files) and photos from your PC. But while the TiVo option
doesn't offer streaming video from your computer (company
officials expect to introduce that feature next year),
there is another advantage to the wireless link: being able
to share a computer's high-speed Internet connection. That
allows you to program the recorder from any
Internet-connected PC and avoids the need to connect the
TiVo to a phone line to download the weekly program guide.

Other Devices

The potential of sharing high-speed
Internet connections with home stereo and TV equipment has
not been lost on the home electronics industry. Indeed,
video game consoles are also vying to become the media
receiver in your living room.

Microsoft's Xbox, for example, has an Xbox Wireless Adapter
option ($100, at electronics stores) that supports the
faster "g" Wi-Fi specification. It is primarily designed to
let ardent gamers blast other players over the Internet but
can also be used to perform tricks similar to those of the
stand-alone media receivers. In fact, Microsoft is about to
try to take advantage of this capability with its Music
Mixer program ($40), a combination photo viewer, music
player and digital karaoke machine being introduced next
month for the Xbox.

Companies like Toshiba, Pioneer, Pinnacle and Creative
Technology will offer an array of devices with media
receiver capabilities in the coming months. But as the
early models show, there are still kinks to be worked out.

All the devices I tested, except the Linksys Media
Adapter, forced me to give up some network security to make
the wireless hookup work. Furthermore, none played all the
popular computer music, photo and video file formats.
Apple's AAC music files, for example, were not supported by
any of the devices. And few media receivers can play video
file formats like Real that are commonplace on computers.

So the day when your computer works seamlessly with your
home entertainment system is not yet here. But the approach
of that moment, like Wi-Fi itself, seems faster all the
time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/23/te...cfe1cf1bfed0f9

[Psilaxs]

Or the much simpler alternative is to get a graphics card with TV out. And for audio just run a "Y" adapter from the secondary output from your PC's audio card into the auxiliary jacks in your home stereo. Problem solved for under 160 bucks. Works great for me.

[Ironhelix]

Personally I find a moded Xbox with Xbox Media Player to be an excellent way to stream movies/Mp3/pictures to your TV. Just share a directory and you are good to go. Not to mention the exquisite video quality, can?t tell divx from dvd sometimes. Of course there are other benefits as well?..

[Greylin]

Or the much simpler alternative is to get a graphics card with TV out. And for audio just run a "Y" adapter from the secondary output from your PC's audio card into the auxiliary jacks in your home stereo. Problem solved for under 160 bucks. Works great for me.

No doubt. I spent all of $20 dollars on a set of 50' S-VIDEO/RCA plug audio cable to hook up my computer to my tv. Works flawlessly for watching movies and listening to music.

[big otis]

can you elaborate more on what an xbox is, how complicated to install and what kind outputs it has??, id like to do the same but not by buying in on some infomercial posting

[tackdaddy]

xbox is the console gaming system,like a playstation 2 it's just set up to play a variety of media.

[Meuzzin]

Wireless solutions for audio and video from your PC to your TV/Stereo suck. Unless you don't use a microwave:) Or if you're in an apartment/condo type situation, make sure you have your neighbors not use their microwave till you're done either.

My best experiences were hard wiring the whole setup. Plus you can set up the whole thing for less than $30. Assuming you have a video card with TV-out.

My current setup consists of a 25' Composite Video and Audio cable, plugged into a switch (10$ at Radioshack), all coming from my ATI9700 Pro. I used to use a GeForce 4, but found the software for controlling the TV-out functions was aweful. I ended up using a third party tool called TVTool (http://tvtool.info/) which only works with Nvidia cards. ATI's software rules though. Plus, with ATI, you can get a remote control designed specifically for the whole PC to TV application.

Just my 2 cents.

[lizardsforall]

I'm finally glad to see some good posts about the uses of Wi-Fi. The technology is relatively new, but the concepts that are presented are as old as tv's and recievers: "I wan't to hook this up to my TV" "how can I view these on there?". what's scary is that all these technologies, computers, dvd, radio, tv and the like are all comming closer and closer together. If you don't believe me, take a look at this...http://h30015.www3.hp.com/mediaPC/index.php The problem has always been a medium of transfer, and wi-fi, or one of it later offsprings, may be the medium of choice.

of course half of the problem is that you still end up sending uncompressed video to the television. hmm... a possible solution?

I just went out and bought a card that could hook up to the televeision. Just like the new media center pc's, that's all they are. now my achine finally kicks butt:shoot

nice old post...

[begoodbebad]

I like having 10 -15 ugly cables trailing around my apartment....it perfectly matches the ambience of a grungy single male's apartment, with the unwashed laundry, the dishes in the sink, empty beer bottles and discarded but essential stuff lying all around, the ever present aroma of....er...roses.... Basically it is a lifestyle choice and has nothing to do with the fact I can't afford it and don't understand it.

[wonderboy2005]

No doubt. I spent all of $20 dollars on a set of 50' S-VIDEO/RCA plug audio cable to hook up my computer to my tv. Works flawlessly for watching movies and listening to music.

hah! got you beat... $2.99 for solder-type rca adapters and my bro paid $15 for an A/V switcher. We had some old Intercom wire laying around, and being the son of an electronics teacher, i made my own ~35 foot wires and made my tv a clone of my desktop monitor.

[big otis]

i didnt realize xbox was really xbox, thought it was some cool a/v card or somthing, any suggestions for a realitive newbie on a moderate way card with a s/vid audio output so i can have 200 feet of nasty cables running around my quaint little abode?

[wonderboy2005]

i use a geforce 4 440 mx PCI card, which will run you all of maybe $60 now. if you already have a GFX card, somthing like this would be a good idea for you, as it is cheap, doesnt require you to give up your current card, and will do exactly what you want.

[cjules13]

Or the much simpler alternative is to get a graphics card with TV out. And for audio just run a "Y" adapter from the secondary output from your PC's audio card into the auxiliary jacks in your home stereo. Problem solved for under 160 bucks. Works great for me.

No doubt. I spent all of $20 dollars on a set of 50' S-VIDEO/RCA plug audio cable to hook up my computer to my tv. Works flawlessly for watching movies and listening to music.

Do you guys get any audio hum in the backround using a method like this? I got the same setup... Except there's always an annoying hum. I thought it was a ground loop or somethng, so I took the ground off my stereo with the 3-prong - 2 prong adapter, but it didn't help much.

It's not too bad except for quiet parts of movies you can hear it.

[nyvocals]

The ATI All In Wonder 9000 pro is my fully functional solution.

[phalkon30]

Tv out plus an X-10 wireless sender/reciever (yeah, like in those popup ads, my dad bought it). It sends audio and video anywhere in our house without a problem.

I've also got a hardwire setup in my room, I don't even use PC speakers, I've got 4 large stereo speakers from the 70's...built like bricks, 12" woofers, high quality silk tweeters, mid range...all hooked up to a 5.1 sony reciever (got it as a return item at best buy for about a hundred).