Alternative to replacing TV

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notv

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#166275 8-Mar-2015 10:08

My DSE plasma (about 10 years old) has stopped displaying a picture and I'm poised to buy another tv but wonder if there's an alternative.

The house is full of computers, tablets and phones, so there isn't a great need for a tv set if there's a way I could get what we have now (SKY, DVD-recorder) to play through these devices instead.

Is there anything available people could recommend that could take the SKY and DVD recorder as inputs then broadcast wirelessly around the house to be viewed on other devices?

This might be obvious to a lot of people but I don't really watch tv, it's more for the family, so would appreciate any advice. We don't have a home theatre or anything HD at this stage so aren't really moviephiles etc.

Thanks!

JimmyH

2886 posts

Uber Geek

#1254297 9-Mar-2015 19:20

My Hauppauge Broadway does exactly that but, to be honest, the quality isn't all that great.

From my reading of some discussions on US fora, it sounds like a Slingbox could be what you are after.

sbiddle

30853 posts

Uber Geek

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Biddle Corp

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#1254426 10-Mar-2015 07:09

IPTV encoders have dropped significantly in price lately. The cheapest kit was probably US$1k for an encoder a year ago - but now you can pick up devices with HDMI input for US$199 off the usual sources ex China.

notv

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1254433 10-Mar-2015 07:38

Thanks for the replies - am going to check out the Slingbox and IPTV (any links for the 199 special?).

cheers :)

sbiddle

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Biddle Corp

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#1254434 10-Mar-2015 07:45

Something like this http://www.aliexpress.com/item/OPR-NH100-H-264-HD-HDMI-Encoder-for-IPTV-Live-Stream-Broadcast-HDMI-Video-Recording/32242100864.html

You obviously need to understand exactly how such a device could fit into your network and how it will handle HDCP (and whether you need to strip this first). The lack of multicast on these cheap boxes is an issue, but they're not really aimed at a home user to do what you're doing - they're really a professional piece of kit.