How can I view my computer on my TV ?

[Cage]

OK, I got the NBN, 100Mb/sec down and 40Mb/sec up. Bloody ripper, and not before time , but that's another story.

My router streams directly to my 'Smart TV' (is that an oxymoron ?) and I can watch Catch-up-TV and all that sort of stuff which is great with 100GB of download as I don't even need to use my HTPC, an acronym I use to refer to my old computer, which I set-up as a recording device.

I now have an idle TP-Link TL-MR3420 router which I used to download mobile phone updates via the internet and I think, and I'm probably wrong, if I had another RJ-45 Port I could use it to stream my 'puter to my TV.

Is my RJ-45 Port piggy-backable (is that a word ?) or would that confuse the crap out of my computer?

My question is how can I view my computer screen on my TV ? My computer only has one RJ-45 LAN Port which, obviously, my NBN router is plugged into.

[ameerat42]

Computer screen to TV: Any one of --
VGA out to TV VGA in
HDMI out to HDMI in (usual one)
DVI out to DVI/HDMI converter to HDMI in
VIDI (Chrome)cast-type (streaming) box to TV (with proper app)


Note though, AFAIK you'll only get the computer screen resolution on your TV.
OK if your computer and TV are both 1080p, say.

[Cage]

I edited my post to mention that I need to go the WIFI way, distance etc.

My modem is 2560 x 1440 and I assume my TV is 1920 x 1080. I could check if it is critical.

[ameerat42]

Set up wifi on your TV. If it DOZEN have it, get a new one. All you need is a good signal strength.
Likely, though, your TV - no matter how smart (unless also expensive) is only good for 2.4 Ghz.
Make sure you are not too far from it. What brand? I know about Sony and a bit about Samsung.
Also, I know you mean the computer is 2560x1440, not the modem Your TV should also have a
fit to screen width function. Note, if not a good enough signal to the TV from your router, put a
2nd router nearby and make it a WAP (which, since I know you'll ask, is a Wireless Access Point).
Effectively, like a repeater station.

[arthurking83]

.....

My question is how can I view my computer screen on my TV ? My computer only has one RJ-45 LAN Port which, obviously, my NBN router is plugged into.

The way I'm reading it, you're two options are really a direct connection via video cable from computer to PC .. or you could try a VPN.
I'm guessing that:

1. you want to view your PC on the TV .. as a PC. That is, redirect the PC's output to a larger screen?
... if that's so, then only a direct connection would do that for 'ya without the use of a VPN.

2. if your smart TV is (say Android) capable, then you could install a VPN app on the TV, and connect to the PC via your LAN(as long as the TV is connected to the LAN).
.. if this is possible, then you'd just need some way to control the device(ie. mouse/keyboard type of device for the TV). This is easily possible maybe a bit laggy but doable.

One final way to try to access the PC via the TV's screen is via a KVM. This is akin to a direct cable connection to the screen tho, ie. similar limitations as a direct connection via a HDMI or video cable. I think you can get KVM switches that operate over an RJ45(ie, LAN) connection, but they are rare and or expensive.

When you say your computer is plugged into the NBN router, it almost sounds as tho there are no more ethernet ports to connect too on the 'router'?
Is this right.
If so, then it's not a router, it's just a modem.
A router will have as a minimum 4 Eth ports to connect too.

Connecting the TV to the computer's RJ45 port will do (in effect)nothing for ya!

What smart tv do you have .. it could make a difference.
is it sort'a smart, is it Android .. is it Samsung .. etc.

I have a Smart TV, and tho it's Android smart, it's not as user friendly as I'd hoped for. It's locked into a silly Chinese system and won't allow a connection to Google Play(for easy to find and choose apps). So I have to search for APKs to use on it. I've been trying to root it since the say I got it too .. but to no effect.
I'm going to try to VPN to the 'puter one day soon(very little time for stuff nowadays) .... when I can be bothered to try.
I'll let 'ya know how it turns out.

[Cage]

Thanks for looking in Artie. I hoped you would.

The TV is a Panasonic Viera Plasma Model # TH-P50ST60A and it is, as I thought, 1920 x 1080 res.

It has built-in wireless LAN.

In my very limited experience with WIFI my gut feeling is that if I can get a signal happening from the computer via a modem, my TV will pick it up.

I guess i could just go the HDMI cable route for the odd time that I would use the facility.

[arthurking83]

It looks like VPN is out of the question.

So, other ways need to be found.

Over Wifi/LAN .. I'm thinking that about the only access you'll have from the TV to the computer will be media files(via the DNLA feature).

.... eg. if you want to access images/movies/music on your PC set your computer to the same network(I know this sounds obvious, but most folks don't realise this), allow sharing of your computer's media files .. and the DNLA feature on the TV will allow you to browse them on the network.

As for accessing your computer(as a computer .. eg. to access your PP editing software and whatnot) on the TV .. I reckon you're going to be plain out of luck.

I've yet to do the computer access thing, but as we speak, I'm installing the VPN software on the tv at the moment .. and soon on the PC .. and see how it all works out.
But the DNLA/media access thingy is a cinch!(or should be).

As for the easy peasy to setup HDMI cable connection, I have no idea on what the limits of a HDMI cable have to be .. so can't help there.
But hook up your PC to the tv via HDMI cable and you instantly have a nice big, albeit a little ugly(ie,. low res) PC screen.

That's why I got the TV I got recently. While the stupid locked Android OS is annoying for now, it's a 4K screen when connected to a PC, and one day that will come in handy when it's time for it to retire and a new TV with better features has been sourced. For now it's only ok at what it does .. got rid of all the devices connected to the old tv, and it's now the media hub(using Kodi as the main media app )

[phild]

When you say your computer is plugged into the NBN router, it almost sounds as tho there are no more ethernet ports to connect too on the 'router'?
Is this right.
If so, then it's not a router, it's just a modem.
A router will have as a minimum 4 Eth ports to connect too.

Sorry Arthur but a router can have as few as two ethernet ports and upwards. The difference between a modem and router is that a modem is basically a dumb device, it simply interprets line signals and converts them to data. A modem by itself is basically useless, it needs something to supply authentication details, usually but not necessarily the router. A router on the other hand analyses packets of data and distributes them according to pre defined rules. A router can, but doesn't necessarily supply the afformentioned authentication information. Routers have as few as 2 ports and upwards and may also have an inbuilt switch (ethernet ports) A router can also have an inbuilt modem as do most ADSL modem/routers.

Re the wireless connection from the PC, a simple DVI-HDMI adapter and a pair of wireless HDMI repeaters will do the trick, Jaycar have them. Alternatively you can get HDMI cables that will work over longer distances, Jaycar also have those. As for controlling your PC there are plenty of wireless keyboard/touchpad units that are designed for that purpose and have decent range.

[ricktas]

I will add one more way to the list.

1. Does your computer have wifi
2. Does your TV have a HDMI port (spare)

If both of these is YES, go out and get yourself a Google Chromecast :https://www.google.com/intl/en_au/ch...chromecast.com

*note you can get them way cheaper than Google sells them for. On Ebay they sell for about $25.00

Plug your chromecast into the HDMI port, follow the setup instructions (takes about 5 minutes) and you are good to go. http://www.techhive.com/article/2999...to-the-tv.html

There are heaps of webpages telling you how to mirror your screen using a chromecast. And your chromecast can do a whole lot more as well. Simple as googling "how to mirror my pc to my tv using chromecast"

I 'cast' stuff to my Panasonic TV using my chromecast from my computers, phone, tablet all the time.

[jev]

I'll chime in here. I got a slightly smaller Panasonic TV that also provides a mirroring app. If you have a WiDi compliant PC, than you can send the screen directly to the TV. My experiences are that the connection is too slow for anything but still images (my PC doesn't support WiDi but my phone does so YMMV). I'm not really impressed with the Panasonic Viera system, it just doesn't perform well.

Instead, I use a cheap android stick that runs Airplay / DLNA Receiver. On the PC, I run AirMyPC. The combination works surprisingly well. Instead of the android stick, you could choose a real AppleTV which should work just as well with AirMyPC.

AirPlay / DLNA Receiver: https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...irplayer&hl=en
AirMyPC: http://www.airmypc.com

In the end, a direct HDMI cable works best though :-D

[John King]

Miracast?

Look here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracast

[arthurking83]

@ Phil. about the number of ports on a router .. I was referring to actual devices(that you can buy) rather than theoretical devices. Never seen any modern routers with less than 4(LAN) ports(so 5 in total including the upstream port).

@ Jev. Edited your post to correct the link to airplay(you only had two ww's)
That airplay thingy looks to be Mac only .. I'm fairly sure that Cage is a PC user.

Didn't know of any of those other stuffs(Chromecast, airmypc .. etc)

So the question is with those devices .. can you actually control the computer (from the TV) whilst it's being mirrored to the TV.
That is, if the computer is a desktop in another room, and not movable then I suspect that all they do is to display the content of the PC screen up onto the TV screen.
This would be handy to use on say a mobile computer device(laptop/tablet/etc) but maybe no so much for a fixed desktop.

Got tired last night and fell asleep whilst setting up the VPN from the TV to the PC. Now have to go to work soon and don't have enough time to finish it off.

[ricktas]

@ Phil. about the number of ports on a router .. I was referring to actual devices(that you can buy) rather than theoretical devices. Never seen any modern routers with less than 4(LAN) ports(so 5 in total including the upstream port).

@ Jev. Edited your post to correct the link to airplay(you only had two ww's)
That airplay thingy looks to be Mac only .. I'm fairly sure that Cage is a PC user.

Didn't know of any of those other stuffs(Chromecast, airmypc .. etc)

So the question is with those devices .. can you actually control the computer (from the TV) whilst it's being mirrored to the TV.
That is, if the computer is a desktop in another room, and not movable then I suspect that all they do is to display the content of the PC screen up onto the TV screen.
This would be handy to use on say a mobile computer device(laptop/tablet/etc) but maybe no so much for a fixed desktop.

Got tired last night and fell asleep whilst setting up the VPN from the TV to the PC. Now have to go to work soon and don't have enough time to finish it off.

They just mirror the computer screen, so you can play a movie, play a slideshow of your photos etc. You do it all on the pc, tablet, phone and it is mirrored to the tv

[Cage]

Thank you all very much for your help. I's most appreciated.

Although I've been building my own computers from scratch for fifteen years, I've never needed WIFI so it's all new, and confusing, to me.

I should state at this point that I only want to watch whats on the computer on the TV, and not operate the computer from the TV.

Below is a snip from the manual of the Telstra T-Gateway that I have.

T-Gateway snip.JPG

As per the set-up instructions my phone is connected to the far left green port, my computer is connected to the GbE port next to the red WAN port and the red WAN port to the NBN box on my wall.

The snip shows a further connection from #1 Ethernet port to a PC, and I was wondering if I could use that to connect my computer to the T-Gateway using one of these USB 3.0 to Gigabit RJ45 Ethernet LAN Network Adapter 1000Mbps For PC ....http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/USB-3-0-t...AAAOSwI-BWF4iT and then use the T-Gateway to send the signal to my TV.

Probably another dumb question so apologies in advance.

[arthurking83]

.....

I should state at this point that I only want to watch whats on the computer on the TV, and not operate the computer from the TV.

.....

My brother in law has a Panasonic TV of some description and it's gigantic. It's a bit old(er), not smart( I don't think so, anyhow) but it does connect to the network.
We've connected it to the internet for him, and I remember seeing their PC connected as a media device.
I can't remember the specifics exactly of how I connected it to the PC, other than I remember setting up file sharing on their PC(Win7 back then) .. which shared movies/photos/music.

I just assumed that the DNLA feature did all this, so they could see the photos on the PC via the media browser on the TV.

So you shouldn't need anything other than to make sure that the TV is configured onto the same network/workgroup as the PC at least .. and that you have simple file sharing on the PC turned on.

If that doesn't work .. it could be the T-box thingy set up between the TV's connection to the router.
(In my brother in law's situation, the TV is connected directly to the router).

Is the Tbox thingy connected via an RJ45 port on the TV? Does it need to be?
That is, if the Tbox has some HDMI type of output, can you not connect it to the TV that way.
(Actually I have no idea what Tbox is .... never used one. I've only dealt with cable tv setups)

So if you can connect the Tbox to another input type on the TV, freeing up the eth port on the TV to connect directly to the router .. I reckon this may get 'yer going.

[jev]

@ Jev. Edited your post to correct the link to airplay(you only had two ww's)
That airplay thingy looks to be Mac only .. I'm fairly sure that Cage is a PC user.

Thanks for the correction.

AirMyPC is windows software, works like a charm on my acer running Win7.

So the question is with those devices .. can you actually control the computer (from the TV) whilst it's being mirrored to the TV.
That is, if the computer is a desktop in another room, and not movable then I suspect that all they do is to display the content of the PC screen up onto the TV screen.
This would be handy to use on say a mobile computer device(laptop/tablet/etc) but maybe no so much for a fixed desktop.

Nope, there's no control from TV on the PC. But it would be fairly easy to plug in a wireless keyboard/mouse for that. Or, if the distance keyboard - PC is too large, use the Android stick and run remote desktop on it. There's a lot of software out there that allows a remote login with mirroring. Don't know how well that works, but if anyone want to try it out => https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ft.rdc.android

Anyway, if you just want to show media from your PC on the TV, use the media player app on the TV and let it connect to a network share from your computer. Personally, I view movies and images from my NAS (which basically is a network drive) this way. You don't need DLNA for this; AFAIK DLNA is not capable of realtime screen mirroring - DLNA is pretty restricted in the way it works anyway (I used to be pretty happy with a DLNA server running on my NAS and play from the TV. Always problems with subtitles and stuff though. I switched to Plex.TV for a while - fantastic user-interface and more reliable than DLNA, but my NAS was not capable of realtime transcoding. When I got this Panasonic, I hoped for a built-in Plex app, but that turned out to be abandoned so I dropped it. Back to DLNA for a while, than one day decided to use the "local media player" and that recognized my network too. Never looked back, the thing plays whatever formats I throw at it and is less prone to network delays.

[arthurking83]

.... Personally, I view movies and images from my NAS (which basically is a network drive) this way.

That's what I finally got around to doing too.
Heaps better than coming off the computer overall.

I procrastinated about getting a NAS/Server of some type for years, wanting the features of one model, but the price and specs of another.
In the end my main image backupo drive fried itself and I had to do something .. quickly!
So I just purchased a small two bay NAS device, slotted in two new drives and hoped for the best.
This now serves as my primary backup for images, with more than enough room for growth, and the second drive in the NAS box has all other 'stuff' .. movies, music, files .. all manner of whatnot.
The NAS box is not what I actually wanted, but as my primary backup drive failed, I had to quickly do something just in case my secondary backup failed.

Kev. I see on the diagram of the network router thingy you have, there's a USB port.
There's a very high probability that this will almost certainly work as a networked USB drive.
Most routers have this feature nowadays.
All you need is a USB drive, connected to this port and enabled in the router's configs.
There's almost certain to be some gotchas and caveats in terms of what file system type you are best to use(or limited too) .. but I'd recommend using this for viewing stuff off your PC instead.
Reason: to view stuff off your PC you obviously need it on. I know this sounds obvious, but remember that this uses power. (probably 100W or more!)
Setting up the USB drive on the router uses far less power, and as it's the router, it's always on, whilst the router is on
(technically it's a NAS).
You should be able to access it from any device on the network if it's set up right on the router.
Windows just sees it as another drive once you set up windows to use it as a networked drive.

if you don't have a USB HDD to try it all with, even a USB thumbdrive will work .. if you want to test it.
It may not be as simple as chuck some files onto the USB device and plug it in.
of all the routers with this feature I've played with, usually you need to set up some sort of drive configs, such as letter allocation and user rights .. but this is usually easy to do.
if the files are to be hidden, then admin rights will do that. If the files are to be accessed by all and sundry(on the network) then blank or open user rights will give you that.
Once setup, via Windows Explorer under the Network tab on the far left, will be a listing for your router, open this and the drive will be visible.
Just be sure to name it something that makes sense so that you find it easily.

[jev]

If you don't have a NAS, you could use the router as Arthur describes. Don't need to map it to a drive letter though - it's not a DOS thing.

Question: what is that T-Box thing in your diagram? You typically wouldn't need extra electronics between router and (smart) TV...

[ricktas]

If you don't have a NAS, you could use the router as Arthur describes. Don't need to map it to a drive letter though - it's not a DOS thing.

Question: what is that T-Box thing in your diagram? You typically wouldn't need extra electronics between router and (smart) TV...

T-Box is one of our ISP's proprietary media box : Telstra T-Box : https://www.telstra.com.au/support/c...d-set-up-t-box It has been discontinued and replaced with a new design called "Telstra TV"

[Cage]

Thanks all.

I don't have a T-Box. I was referring to the connection from Ethernet port #1 directly to a PC.

In my ignorance it seems to me that the missing link in my chain is something to pick up the PC output and deliver it to the T-Gateway, possibly via a direct PC to T-Gateway USB cable, or via the USB/Ethernet dongle I linked to above.

The 'Smart TV' Manual, although fairly comprehensive, loses a bit in it's Chinglish translation, and seems to assume that I'm either a NASA hot-shot, or that I'm an IT/Communications geek, in that it omits the odd bit of salient info that this dumb-ass need to get his head around it all. Oh, and it was configured up to Windows 8 and I'm running W10, but hopefully there are patches available on the Panasonic website if required.

Maybe a 5m HDMI cable is the easiest way to go.