utterly confused about DLNA / Twonky / Plex / Airplay etc -please guide me!

[savvyguy]

today, i overheard some peeps talking about how cool airplay is, for the fact that their phones could serve media straight to their Apple TVs wirelessly, without hassle. while it's not exactly a new term, i didn't really have much use for it until recently.

i went to do some research on how i could pull off this same feat on my non-apple devices. here's a list of devices I have :

- Samsung 46" LCD TV (LA46C630K1M), DLNA certified
- ACRyan PlayOn HD Mini Media player
- Galaxy Note, Galaxy S2, LG Optimus, Iphone 4S, HP touchpad (on android too)
- Engenius Router ESR9850
- Customized rig (not on 24/7)

here's what i want to achieve :

- mirror display from phone to TV (i.e. whatever that appears on the phone, should appear on the TV in real-time)
take note that it should also be cross-platform, since we have apple/android in the family

- if above is not possible, at least be able to view my photos/videos (stored in phone and PC) on the TV wirelessly
(Twonky beam seems to be able to do that, but i can't find a step-by-step guide to accomplishing this)

- stream internet video from phone and watch on TV

- use android apps such as netflix on phone and view directly on TV

- serve 1080p videos (mkvs) from PC to phones

--

here's the confusion :

- there's so many ways we could go about achieving these objectives, but what is the best (most cost-efficient) way? I've read about building HTPCs and running XBMC off them, but i'm striking that option off because it's too costly and might be overkill for what i need.

- after reading the user guide for my LCD TV, it says i must buy their wireless dongle for the WIFI to work. is that true? can't i just grab any 3rd party wireless-N USB adapter?

- can i achieve my objectives simply by connecting a LAN cable from my router to the TV? what are the disadvantages?

- how about serving from phone to TV?

- what part can my Acryan player have in this instance?


hopefully someone can clear the confusion, guess i'm overloaded with info about this whole DLNA thing. lol. TIA!

[aedipuss]

here i have a couple dlna nas servers, shared folders on computers, networked blu-ray players, and networked tv. for my nook hd+ android device i use skifta to access them. you choose a display device, a media source and then play what you want. it can either play one of the 1080p dts mkvs on the nook, or send it to the blu-ray player to watch on the tv. photos, music work also. basically it's a display device and remote control.

no idea what iThings can do, i don't have any. but playing a 1080p video and also streaming it to the tv simultaneously sounds a bit much for a handheld device.

other than the nook all devices are hard wired with cat6 on a gb network. much better for HD movie transmission than wireless, never any interruptions.

[savvyguy]

for your nook to act as a server, all u do on your side is connect the cat6 from router to TV and get the phone in your home network right? is there anything else that's required to serve the media? short of using a MHL cable, you can't really go wired for serving media from phones to TVs, is it correct?

[aedipuss]

yes the tv shows up on the network as a display device after being plugged in.

no can't connect tablets/phones to the network with a wire - they don't have network interface cards only wifi.

[savvyguy]

alright, i just got cat6 cables to connect router to TV.

i tried using Twonky beam, but it gets stuck at the loading screen when i beam the video to my TV. any alternative app i can try?

further, twonky/imediashare can only share internet video - i also want to share what's stored locally on my mobile device (pics/videos/music). how do i achieve that?