I’m looking to overhaul my home theater and I need some advice from the dope. I want a total multimedia center.
Here’s what I want:
[ul]
[li]Play my mp3 music collection[/li][li]Stream music from Pandora[/li][li]Stream shows from Hulu, and the networks like NBC.com, etc.[/li][li]Stream from Netflix[/li][li]Play blue ray discs[/li][/ul]
I currently watch shows either on an old TV with a cable connection or on my laptop on websites like Hulu and the networks themselves. However, now I want to ditch the cable subscription and watch everything online.
My first thought was that I needed an HTPC to hook up to a TV, but then I discovered than many of the new TVs, and even the speaker systems, have wi-fi connections so that they can access Netflix and Pandora, for example. However, I don’t think any of these tvs or home theater speaker systems allow you to connect directly to Hulu or a website like abc.com.
I discovered that many of the TVs and speaker systems on the market also make it easy to connect to a hard drive and play media straight off of them. Consequently, it seems like the only thing I’d need an HTPC for is just to watch TV shows online.
Can anyone with a modern TV and/or speaker system tell me about your setup? In particular, I’m interested in how you watch your tv shows for free.
If your laptop has an hdmi output and your tv has an hdmi input, hurrah, you need an hdmi cord. If one or both of those is not true, it gets more complicated.
My desktop is connected to a 1080p HDTV via HDMI, along with a terrestrial HD tuner, and a blu-ray player. TV is connected to home theater receiver via left and right RCA cables.
My laptop was made just before HDMI connections became standard on laptops, but that’s more or less the setup I’ve got now, except I’m using VGA instead of HDMI.
I looked at the Roku, but it seems to do exactly what modern TVs do, and has the same limitations as modern TVs. That is, it can access Netflix, Youtube, and Hulu Plus, but not the content websites themselves. I don’t mind paying for a Netflix subscription, but I don’t want to pay for Hulu Plus when I can get regular Hulu for free by using a web browser.
We have a Neuros for that, (http://store.neurostechnology.com/neuros-link-c-27.html) but honestly, I don’t think you’ll like it. Watching TV on a big screen through a web browser sucks. There is a reason Hulu can sell Hulu plus. The Neuros is basically a Linux box with Boxee as its primary app.
We have a Roku (have had one for years), Neuros, Tivo, plus the game systems (Playstation, XBox, and Wii).
You can do all of those things except play Blu-ray with an Xbox 360 + playon. I believe you can do it with PS3 + playon and that would have blueray too. You can get playon as part of a charity app bundle until the end of 2010 here: http://www.appsumo.com/. Or you can see it directly here: http://www.playon.tv/. Playon does netflix, hulu, network web sites, all together on your console for you.
Not necessarily true. I watch shows online on my TV all the time and both the sound and video are linked to the TV via HDMI. Usually it switches from the computer speakers to the HDMI automatically, but sometimes I have to go into the sound controls and change it over manually.
My Blu-ray can stream Pandora, connect to Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Vudu, and has USB for music. But to watch network shows, I still have to connect the laptop to the TV. As a side note, I’m starting to get annoyed that the shows online have almost as many commercials as when they are broadcast, only worse in some ways because they show the same ones over and over and they are 10 times as loud.
Same here. The audio goes from the headphone jack of the computer to the audio in of the TV, though I would buy good speakers if I used this connection more. It is not HDMI quality, but I’m usually streaming MST3K episodes on Netflix, so it is plenty good for that.
OP: I love my setup. Hooking up a cheap desktop with cable Internet was one of the best ideas I’ve had. Wireless keyboard and mouse, and I check the Dope during commercials and slow parts! All from the couch. If only I could teach the cat to fetch beer and popcorn.