Wirelessly Connect Computer to TV?

[PHPGator]

I have seen some possibilities of connecting your computer to your television wirelessly. I stumbled across hardware such as this: http://www.amazon.com/Aitech-Pro-Wireless-Converter-06-078-001-08/dp/B000BD68KM/ref=sr...7842505&sr=8-4

Let me go ahead and say that I'm not too concerned about being able to control the computer with a remote of any kind. I would just like to get good video and audio wirelessly, even if I have to start the movies (my intended purpose) from my computer. I'm looking for something that would support anything (divx, wma, avi, etc.), so most wireless media players that I have seen would not work either. Does anyone know of a good option for this?

My computer is roughly 30 feet away from my computer (seperate rooms), so I would rather not run a cable unless this is the only decent solution available. Is there any good options out there? The link above states that this specific wireless connector gives bad quality and won't work at all unless the computer is directly near your computer. This would not work for me.

[PHPGator]

Please allow me to add something, I came across this one: http://www.amazon.com/RF-Link-AVS-5811-5-8GHz-Transmission-Repeater/dp/tech-data/B0002.../ref=de_a_smtd

Would this work for me? I noticed in the reviews that most people were actually using this to play cable from one box downstairs or in another room onto another TV. But a few had referenced that they used it from a PC to a TV. I'm a newbie, I admit it. So any advice would be helpful.

[neomaine]

The Popcorn Media player (I think that's the name...) has a network connection and can play the formats mentioned. Setup with a good wireless network adapter, you'll probably get the best options. At 30ft, any half decent wireless router should work fine. My son does this with his xbox360 with only a 10mb wireless connection. With a 100mb connection, I would think even HD would come into play.

Most of those audio/video blasters won't do anything more than standard def, and poorly at that. I haven't heard anyone who understands a/v actually be happy with their performance.

[neomaine]

Do you have some more info? Video specs, tv specs, network capability...

[PHPGator]

Actually, to be honest I don't right now. I'm going to be buying a new TV soon. I am running an older one right now. It doesn't have HD or anything like that. HD is nice, but not absolutely necessary at this point. I run a pretty good video card on my computer. I know it doesn't have an HDMI port, but it obviously does run VGA and S-VIDEO. Hopefully this will help.

I'm going to look at the "Popcorn Media Player" you were talking about. Thanks!

[jagabo]

Consider the Western Digital TV HD Media Player, WDTV (~US$100). You can copy most video files to a thumb drive or USB hard drive and play them back on the WDTV. It supports both standard and high definition video files and SD and HD televisions.

The devices you are looking at will downconvert to standard definition composite video resolution. That's probably fine for your current TV but HD videos will look pretty poor on a new HDTV. The upside though is that you could watch streaming video on the TV. So Netflix, Hulu, etc. can be watched that way.

The second device you linked to would require that your computer already have a composite video output. The first one converts VGA to composite video.

[PHPGator]

jagabo, Actually, that doesn't sound bad at all. I just wanted to get away from the time it takes to burn dvd's. As well, I was having to convert the movie into different formats because my dvd player was pretty limited on what it could play. I would like to just be able to play them on my tv without having to change formats, etc. Do you know if that Western Digital TV HD media player will support DivX video offhand? I didn't see it listed on the formats it supports.

Also, I checked out the Popcorn Media Player. It looks pretty nice, but fairly expensive, seems like it supports almost all video formats I could think of. The bonus is that it does have a wireless system with it at the $250 price tag. That makes it nice as well.

[jagabo]

Do you know if that Western Digital TV HD media player will support DivX video offhand?

It supports Divx and Xvid encoded AVI files. I don't know if it has advanced Divx Ultra support with Divx menus, integrated subtitles, and chapter stops. It does play external SRT subtitles (and some others). The WDTV supports most of the same file formats (containers and codecs) the Popcorn Hour supports. The WDTV doesn't have a DTS decoder. If that's important to you you'll have to route the digital audio output to a receiver that supports DTS.

The source code for the WDTV's firmware is open source. There are mods that allow the use of USB wireless network adapters. That would let you access shares on your wireless network if you have one. I also heard a rumor that WD will be introducing a new player soon (no details though). Maybe it will have native wireless networking support out of the box.

[PHPGator]

Thanks jagabo, sounds like what I am looking for!