School me on streaming from PC to TV

[winson604]

So I just moved and will no longer be able to have my PC close to my TV. For years I just had the HDMI connected from the PC directly to the TV making the viewing of any content on the big screen with ease.

Since running a cable is no longer an option, I must look into streaming. I watch a lot of downloaded Tv Shows, Movies, Anime etc in various formats such as mkv, avi etc

I'm currently using a PC and will be purchasing a new TV soon as well, nothing fancy b/c I'm on a budget so probably a LG Smart TV in the $900 range.

I know there are some options like Apple TV, Roku, Chromcast, Miracast but some articles seem to indicate that most of these are not compatible with my setup. In fact, the flowchart below from Tomsguide indicates none of the options work for me. I'm on Windows 8.1 but don't have the option to add a wireless display. Chromcast seems to be ok but looks like there are some restrictions on file types?

Anywhere care to school me on the best way to do this?

[.Renn.Sport]

Install Plex server on the PC and either airplay the content using the plex app onto an apple tv or buy an android box like Xiaomi Box and install the plex app into it.

[mos_skeeto]

I own/use plex, apple tv, wdtv and chromecast.

Chromecast works well if you're network is really good. I have a walls between my tv and router so when I beam from my couch it goes from living room > den > living room and it's crap. I also find that videos don't really cache well so it's not like you can hit pause for a few seconds and let it queue up. Theres plug-ins you can get for Chrome (desktop) that lets you play pretty much anything.

Apple TV is awesome for buying, renting and watching web-friendly videos (ex: youtube, netflix). For random stuff you download off the web its awful.

Plex as above poster mentioned is my favourite stream option. Great performance over the network and fancy menus.

What I use is none of the above. I hate streaming. (insert grupmy cat gif here). I got a wdtv media player from Costco and I go old school with a usb hard drive (2 terabytes accessible over the network). It keeps my computer hard drive empty and everything plays easily with 5.1 surround with no fuss and I can take it to a friends house. The only pain is transferring stuff over. XBMC would also work for this purpose.

[Presto]

I went the HTPC route, and connected a PC to the TV. It runs Windows 8, and can do everything my desktop can do. It's controlled via a compact, wireless keyboard with a trackball in the corner. We mainly use MPC, for offline content, or Chrome, for Netflix/other streaming. Recently, since The HTPC gets my main PC's handmedowns, I've started playing games using Steam's Big Picture mode, and a wireless XBox controller. Works great!

I tried XBMC, but didn't like it because it doesn't automatically go to the next show. Has a feature for this been added, yet?

[winson604]

Originally Posted by mos_skeeto

I own/use plex, apple tv, wdtv and chromecast.

Chromecast works well if you're network is really good. I have a walls between my tv and router so when I beam from my couch it goes from living room > den > living room and it's crap. I also find that videos don't really cache well so it's not like you can hit pause for a few seconds and let it queue up. Theres plug-ins you can get for Chrome (desktop) that lets you play pretty much anything.

Apple TV is awesome for buying, renting and watching web-friendly videos (ex: youtube, netflix). For random stuff you download off the web its awful.

Plex as above poster mentioned is my favourite stream option. Great performance over the network and fancy menus.

What I use is none of the above. I hate streaming. (insert grupmy cat gif here). I got a wdtv media player from Costco and I go old school with a usb hard drive (2 terabytes accessible over the network). It keeps my computer hard drive empty and everything plays easily with 5.1 surround with no fuss and I can take it to a friends house. The only pain is transferring stuff over. XBMC would also work for this purpose.

Likewise i hate streaming anything. I think I might go WDTV route. Does it handle almost every format you throw at it?

[Sir_Loin]

If you have a mac like that chart says 2011--> on the latest OS free to D/L the best option for streaming is APPLE TV. Using AIRPLAY it mirrors the screen of your macbook or imac, using mplayerx can watch any format avi, mkv etc. Or use quicktime to play mpegs or VLC player to cover any other obscure formats. I stream tv shows on my imac it helps the connection if you have an ethernet cable, wifi on my macbook isn't bad but I mainly use my imac to stream tvshows/movies. Iphones/ipads on the latest firmware allows airplay streaming to the appletv aswell, helps to show vacation photos to family/friends on a bigger tv.

EDIT: Saw the thread title and I didn't know you were asking PC to TV streaming only.

[winson604]

^^
All good thanks for replying anyways!

[underscore]

I'm gonna be hooking up my Raspberry Pi running XBMC soon to take care of the streaming, I tried it before with an external HDD and it worked well so we'll see how this goes.

[winson604]

I think right now the front runner is to just go WDTV styles.

[mos_skeeto]

Originally Posted by winson604

Likewise i hate streaming anything. I think I might go WDTV route. Does it handle almost every format you throw at it?

Yup! MKV and anything you get from pirate bay works. Even loads external subs. If the audio is out of sync (this happens maybe 1/100 of the time and usually the encoder's fault) you can even + or - the audio sync to match it up.

One thing that is a little disappointing is network speeds aren't very good. It takes 10 minutes to transfer 300mb sometimes.

Also when you grab your hard drive make sure to get a 2.5 inch one. I think they go up to 2-3 terabytes now. Having it powered off a USB cable and no power supply is great for clutter (and when you need to do a massive file dump from computer).

[winson604]

^^
Thanks!