wirelessly sending video from laptop to multiple tv's

[Scrumslove]

I am a karaoke DJ: and I need to send screen two of my laptop to multiple tv's in a large bar. The bar has internet which I can use if that helps. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thank you. My Laptop has an HDMI as well as USB port on the side open for use for this.

[Cornucopia]

Depends upon the TVs and how they're hooked up.

1. If they're SmartTVs (aka have streaming/webbrowser app capability), you just stream to a site and have each TV look to that site address. Even easier if they're smart and use WiFi.
2. If they're NOT smartTVs, but they have their source coming from a video DA (distribution amp), such as a "networked" HDMI distribution system, then you just feed your laptop's HDMI to the input of the source of the DA.
3. If they're NOT smart, and don't have a video distribution network, but do have a closed-circuit RF distribution system, you would send your video signal to an ATSC channel modulator, and then add the output of that to the input of the cable system (via a switch, probably). This is much rarer (and $$) with ATSC vs. old NTSC RF modulators that were widely and cheaply available to game systems (which you could set to ch3 or 4).
4. If they are NOT smart, and they're totally standalone machines (no routing distribution system at all), you'll need to bring your own routing/distribution system. Not cheap. Maybe you can rent one, though.

Scott

[TreeTops]

Scott, I have TV's that are not smart and I just run a cable from HDMI out of laptop to the TV and it works just fine. Maybe the issue is the multiple TV's?

[Cornucopia]

Yeah, it IS the multiple TVs. That's why I phrased it the way I did, because there needs to be a way to get the same program in sync to all the displays.

Scott

[KarMa]

Chromecast can be an option if the content does not need video quality fluidity/framerates. As it uses your computer to encode VP8 video then trasmits it over WiFi and is then displayed on a TV via its HDMI. If I had to guess my computer averages 10-15fps encodings for the Chromecast. It barely uses more than 10-20% CPU power so I'm not sure why the fps is so low. And there is about a 1-2 second lag between computer and TV. If the two TVs are close then maybe plug the Chromecast into a HDMI splitter and feed the output to the two TVs.

Scott mentioned feeding video over coax by converting HDMI to QAM (works with US HDTV tuners), like maybe this. Or if 1080p quality is not needed and the TVs can still decode analog NTSC (some HDTVs can't) then there is a cheaper option for feeding 480i analog video, like this. In a bar situation where you are more than couch distance from a screen, then the video quality matters less but I don't know your setup.

[Cornucopia]

Good options, KarMa!
Not sure what happens with lag, quality, etc., when multiple ChromeCasts are pulling from the same WiFi source. My guess is that there may be a bandwidth issue on the part of the laptop (normal web streaming servers are higher powered and make use of multi-casting, but not in this case).

Scott

[JVRaines]

I am a karaoke DJ: and I need to send screen two of my laptop to multiple tv's in a large bar.

Nyrius has a number of products for sending HDMI or analog video wirelessly. I have used the Aries Prime and it was flawless. Will set you back a few hundred bucks, though, depending on how many receivers you need.

[Cornucopia]

Another good option. But can you tweak the receivers so that they all receive from the same transmitter? I would think a system like this would come pre-paired and may not be switchable.

You could do Mersive Solstice Pods wirelessly receiving at each monitor at decent quality 1080p30 and have them be ganged together (they're known for that capability, and I have demonstrated this on our campus), but it would cost you plenty ($1200 each for the Enterprise/gangable version).

Scott

[JVRaines]

Another good option. But can you tweak the receivers so that they all receive from the same transmitter? I would think a system like this would come pre-paired and may not be switchable.

Both the analog (composite) and Orion HDMI models are capable of multicast.

[jagabo]

In theory you could use VLC to send a UDP broadcast on the LAN -- then every computer that want's to display the video can display it. Of course that requires that each TV have a player that accepts the broadcast (eg, a computer -- Raspberry Pi? -- running VLC as a client). This works pretty well with a wired connection but wireless loses too many packets. And the TVs won't be in perfect sync.

server at 192.168.1.108 broadcasts:

vlc -vvv %1 --sout udp:192.168.1.255 --ttl 12

each client (192.168.1.xxx) plays:

vlc.exe udp://192.168.1.108