Options for playing local PC content on TV via ethernet cable

[punchball]

Hi, I hope someone can give me some advice.

I moved to a two-story house, and the router and TV are downstairs while my desktop PC is upstairs. I mainly play videos on my computer, but I want to watch them on the TV. I used to have an HDMI cable (for video and audio), and that worked great. But now I would need to get a 15 meter one. I was hoping to avoid that, since the PC (which has no wi-fi) is connected to the network with an ethernet cable.

So I'm looking for some kind of box to connect to the TV and the router, that can either (A) receive files that I stream (with some sort of app or player) from my PC to the network, or (B) access the media files on my PC and play them. Option A would be preferable, because then I can use MPC and the great remote control app for MPC, like I used to, and be able to watch all the files that my computer can play, with total control. But from my research, it seems like option A is pretty impossible. So I guess it's option B.

I have looked into ChromeCast with the ethernet adapter. The problem is I need to use Chrome to play media, and it doesn't even support avi or mkv. Some third-party app can let me transcode these files on the fly, but that sounds like a bad idea. And what about playing DVD files on my computer?

I have looked at the Beelink X2, the WD TV box and some others. The WD TV seems great except it can't play DivX files. The Beelink, like all these Chinese gizmos, has very little documentation. Can somebody recommend something else? Or if the WD TV box is the way to go, which model should I get?

[redwudz]

The WD TV seems great except it can't play DivX files.

My WDTV boxes play DivX and Xvid videos. At least the ones I have.

I don't stream my videos, I just have a PC set up like a server with the HDDs shared in the room with the router.
I can access those drives from any PC or WDTV hooked to the same LAN. I can use any software player I want that way.
I also use WOL (Wake On Lan) to turn on the server from one of my PCs so it doesn't run all the time.

[punchball]

Thanks for your reply. You say that your WDTV boxes play DivX videos. Do you mean playing them on the actual box, not with a software player on a PC?

Also, can I ask which models you have? With more research I've found that it seems like older models can play DivX, and also DVDs (.iso), but newer models can't. WD TV Play (WD TV 4th Gen) from 2013 and WD TV Media Player (WD TV 2nd Gen) from 2014 are the newer models.

[jagabo]

Thanks for your reply. You say that your WDTV boxes play DivX videos. Do you mean playing them on the actual box, not with a software player on a PC?

Yes, that's what he means. You can play them off a USB thumb drive, a USB hard drive, via network shares, or via a DLNA server. I have thousands of video organized in a folder structure on a NAS box. It's easy to just connect to the NAS, browse through the folders, and select a video.

Also, can I ask which models you have?

I have an old WDTV Live, 1.4 at the wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WD_TV_Live

It plays Divx/Xvid AVI, h.264 in MP4/MKV, MPEG 2 in program and transport streams, etc.

I recently replaced it with a Raspberry Pi 3 model B running Kodi. Mostly just to play around with the RPi.

[Sakamuyo]

WDTV is our best bet ..

[_Al_]

WDTV Live should play DivX, if not, that DivX was perhaps encoded with a weird options or your model you tested it on has a temporary (so perhaps for good) firmware bug.

Also you can have a device that allows running Kodi. There is a huge variety of those devices, HTPC's, Raspberry Pi3, different Android boxes, those devices can have different operating systems, Android, Linux, windows. Some of those devices can boot directly into Kodi. Major difference between devices like those and old fashion firmware device like WDTV is a possibility of installing custom app or image or program (depending what you have). If something does not work on WDTV , you are pretty much out of luck. For example you get a Android box and pre-installed app is no good there are others apps to download from Google store.
If getting any hardware device make sure it is latest one, because those chips in them are faster and faster, and price itself is not always a sign how fast or latest that device is. It is quite a mess right now, kadzilion devices everywhere. Also it should handle 4k content, that it usually sign it is relatively new.

[Cauptain]

Serviio DLNA + WDTV = Flawless resolution.



Claudio

[netmask56]

https://www.cloudmedia.com/

[MOVIEGEEK]

Buy a Sony Blu-ray player, they have DLNA built-in. For $60USD you can stream your videos, watch Netflix and play discs. If you are a gamer then buy a PS3/4. You don't need to pay for special software for your PC either, just use WMP.

[punchball]

Thanks for the replies. For now we actually ended up buying a 15 meter active HDMI cable anyway, which was a lot cheaper than any other solution and requires zero setup. (We just have to fasten it to walls/ceilings).