Right now, I connect my laptop to my TV via HDMI cable if I want to watch streaming contents on the big screen. But I’m getting annoyed by the clumsy cable and frequent connection failures, so I’m interested in a cord-less alternative. My TV is a ca. 10 years old LG HD TV, it’s a “dumb” TV but has got a USB port. I have a Win 10 laptop with Chrome as my preferred browser and an Android smartphone, so I guess that naturally my first choice should be Google Chromecast. But I wonder if a Kindle Fire Stick could work as well for me, and what the differences and pros and cons are. Can either of the devices do things that the other cannot? Please help me out.
Suggest that you also consider Roku.
I’m in Germany where Roku isn’t available. To clarify, I’m not interested in streaming services, but just in a way to wirelessly connect my TV to the laptop or the smartphone.
Does your TV have an HDMI port? My Fire Stick is HDMI only. Not sure if there are USB models available.
I love my Fire Stick. I am a long time Amazon Prime member and very happy with the content available between that and the other streaming apps available.
I assume based on the first sentence of the OP that he does.
I was under the impression that devices like you were talking about don’t connect a computer or smartphone to your TV, but rather allow you to view streaming services on your TV without the use of some other device. Was I wrong?
Yes, it hast two HDMI ports. I mentioned the USB port in my OP because I was bit confused about how Chromecast and the Fire Stick connect to a TV, but now I remember that it works over HDMI.
As I understand it, with Chromecast you have the ability to stream from smartphone apps and Windows programs to your TV over a shared Wifi network (for instance, in the Chrome browser menu there’s an option for streaming).
I don’t understand why you have connection failures using a cable. A cable (HDMI?) is going to be way more reliable than any wireless solution.
If all that you’re looking for is a wireless connection to your TV, this would work:
https://www.amazon.com/Wireless-SOCLL-Streaming-Receiver-Projector/dp/B08K2Z9GF3/ref=sr_1_9?crid=2K4QX6CR6UJ1C&dchild=1&keywords=wireless+hdmi&qid=1609609294&s=electronics&sprefix=wireless+hdmi%2Caps%2C189&sr=1-9
Most Roku models will allow you to mirror your screen (phone or PC) to the TV, as long as the device supports Miracast. I believe Chrome and Firestick do the same, but I don’t have experience with those devices. However it’s true that all of three of these are primarily intended to do streaming from the Internet; the screen mirroring is a secondary feature. And yes, video playback will not be completely seamless and artifact-free, because there’s a huge amount of data being sent over the air to mirror a full-resolution screen, and transient interference and glitches will visibly affect the video image on the TV. When I want to ensure a good quality video image, I use a cable.
Just for the record, you can buy and use a Roku in Germany, but there are some services like Amazon Prime that can’t be streamed to Germany.
Sorry, I quickly searched for Roku in Germany and got the impression that it’s not sold here.
It’s a Windows problem, some erratic behavior of the video drivers, I guess. The laptop doesn’t detect the TV anymore when I plug it in, so I always have to go to display settings and to identify the TV manually. And in maybe 1 of 4 cases, this also doesn’t work, and I have to reboot to get the TV detected. I think I’ve tried everything to troubleshoot this problem, to no avail, though I’m usually not dumb with computers (I’m an IT guy by trade).
Ah, got it. That sucks.
In that case, your least expensive solution is the Amazon link that I posted above. Good luck!
Thanks, I’ll look into it!
Beware a possible gotcha:
I have a similar vintage Toshiba dumb HDTV with a USB port in addition to multiple HDMI, composite video, coax, optical, etc., inputs. But …
The USB port is not fully functional. You can only plug in a thumb drive. Once that “signal” source is selected the TV will play a continuous slideshow (“screensaver”) from the image files it finds in the root folder of the flash drive. That’s it.
If you haven’t confirmed from your TV’s documentation that its USB port is usable as a streaming input port, I suggest you do that as the very next step in your quest.
Google just released a new chromecast device that is also a streaming player. So not only can it do casting like the old chromecast, but it is also a standalone streaming device which can play Netflix, Hulu, etc. just like Roku and FireTV:
https://store.google.com/us/config/chromecast_google_tv
If you do a lot of streaming, you may want to get a device which has TV controls on the remote for power, volume, and mute. They making watching more convenient since you don’t have to juggle the TV and streaming remotes. The chromecast above has these buttons. The Roku Streaming Stick+ is the cheapest Roku which has those buttons on the remote. I’m not sure which FireTV devices have TV controls.
I’m very happy with my Chromecast, especially since you can also natively stream Prime video content to it. If you’re using Chrome as a browser, you can also directly stream your desktop or any browser video—does that work natively with the Fire stick?
I use the Chromecast dongle, from a Mac (Chrome browser) to a Samsung 2016 TV (predates Airplay). It’s easy to set up, and the connection is stable.
For most things, although you control what’s happening on your laptop, the default is not to mirror the laptop screen, it picks up the video API and the video data does not go via your laptop, it does direct over WiFi (native streaming). This gives you the same high quality video as if you were watching through an app installed on your TV, or a Firestick or Roku - much better quality than mirroring.
This leads to one quirk. I watch some European sports via VPN because of regional broadcast restrictions. This then does not work using the default method, because my laptop is connected to a European server via VPN, but my WiFi router is not. So for this I need to switch Chromecast to just mirroring my laptop screen. It works, but for some reason using mirroring I can’t get the sound to go to my TV, it keeps coming out of my laptop.
Previous thread.
This functionality is what I’m looking for, I only use the laptop-TV connection for streaming video anway. But one more question: is there a media player for Windows that lets me connect to Chromecast like in Chrome? I still have many movies as video files on physical media I want to watch from time to time.
I’m on a Mac, so I can’t give you a first hand report, but apparently VLC can talk to Chromecast:
Cool, thanks, that will work for me, I’ve used VLC before on several platforms.