What's the Best Way To Get Web Content To My TV?

An anonymous reader writes "It seems like there are a lot of options for getting web content onto our TVs, but which one is the best way to go? Being able to stream videos (especially through sites like Hulu), check out social networking sites, and read news would be awesome to do from my couch. Currently, I hook up my laptop to the TV, which works, but it's annoying, especially if I want to use my laptop while I am watching some videos. Some things that are important to me are: connecting to my HDTV, allowing me view anything I could in a web browser as if I were on my computer, and being easily controlled from the couch. What setups do you guys use, or what would you like to use?"

Comments

Top three recently introduced

[adeelarshad82]

The top three products at DEMO for surfing the web on your TV were GlideTV, Kylo & Nyoombl. Details here

Re:Top three recently introduced

[FredFredrickson]

I'm a big fan of PlayOn + Xbox 360

Re:Top three recently introduced

[toastar]

Playon works pretty well with my ps3

Re:Top three recently introduced

[mcgrew]

Products, schmoducks, he has everything he needs except a wireless mouse and keyboard. If plugging the laptop into the TV is a PITA, he should simply get a desktop PC with HDMI or S-Video, depending on his TV's inputs.

Re:Top three recently introduced

[Bloke down the pub]

Or another laptop. He could probably pick one up with a damaged screen for next to nothing.

nVidia ION nettop

[rwa2]

I've been testing these things for work, and I'm very impressed.

Dual core atom w/ hyperthreading actually makes the system very responsive, so it's easier to forget that it's not a "real" CPU, unlike my single-core eeePC that does stutter occasionally.

Also has a decent nVidia 9400 GPU with dedicated RAM, so it actually will give you decent 3D desktop effects (useful for monitoring multiple pieces of content simultaneously), decoding acceleration, etc. under both Windows and Linux.

The price point is pretty good too... many are under $300 if you can provide your own storage... e.g. if you find a usb pendrive linux-based media center that streams everything.

That takes care of pretty flexible hardware... I don't actually have a TV, though, so I haven't really bothered to find media software I liked. But going with a full nettop means it should be pretty straightforward to run all XBMC, Boxee, MythTV, Miro, etc. from one device. Though I guess you'd need to go with Windows to get crappy DRM'd content like Hulu and Netflix (which I've simply just been doing without).

Re:nVidia ION nettop

[ColdWetDog]

Netflix runs quite well on the Mac through Silverlight. Haven't bothered with Hulu though.

Re:nVidia ION nettop

[Chad Birch]

Yeah, could be a factor. I've ripped all the DVDs that I own so that they're all available to browse and play without disc-swapping anyway, but I also have a PS3 hooked to the same TV, so I just play a DVD through that if necessary. An external drive could be an option as well.

Home Theatre PC.

[saintlupus]

I use an HP "Media Center" PC, running Ubuntu with MythTV and accessed with a Microsoft Remote Keyboard. Two analog tuners for cable, and an HDHomerun hooked to a powered antenna for over the air HD content.

MythTV runs on virtual desktop one, and a web browser on virtual desktop two.

--saint

Re:Home Theatre PC.

[heckler95]

Same here but with Windows Vista Media Center which includes a great Netflix implementation. The PC came with a remote control which can do anything you need to within the Media Center interface and I have installed Hulu Desktop which is also remote control-friendly. Unfortunately I only have a single tuner connected to the output of my cable box with an IR blaster for changing channels and recording.

All in all, it was a completely painless setup, the only negative is that I don't have a way to get HD output from my cable box into Media Center.

Re:Home Theatre PC.

[futuresheep]

Contact your cable company and have them give you a cable box with enabled firewire ports. They're required by the FCC to have them available. You can use a firewire card to capture the streams. There's a good start on getting it set up here:

http://home.comcast.net/~exdeus/stbfirewire/

Re:Home Theatre PC.

[futuresheep]

Just be aware that not all the STB's have firewire turned on, with Comcast they were disabled on my first STB, so I had to call and ask for one. If they give you any issues, it's rule 76.640.

http://louise.hallikainen.org/FCC/FccRules/2005/76/640/

      (4) Cable operators shall:

      (i) Effective April 1, 2004, upon request of a customer, replace any leased
      high definition set-top box, which does not include a functional IEEE 1394
      interface, with one that includes a functional IEEE 1394 interface or
      upgrade the customer's set-top box by download or other means to ensure that
      the IEEE 1394 interface is functional.

Acer Revo

[Albanach]

I replaced my eeebox with an Acer Revo this year. For $200 US you get a small but fully fledged computer that runs Ubuntu just fine. It's a perfect box for xbmc. Firefox works just fine for web to your TV.

Best thing about it is the Nvidia Ion chipset, so you can do full 1080p playback. Biggest disadvantage is the lack of wireless. I added a USB wireless adapter.

For controls, you can use a wireless keyboard. For the XBMC you can use a Microsoft Media Center remote, or there's a decent remote for the iPhone/iPod touch.

Re:Acer Revo

[drinkypoo]

Second this, my next media player (to supersede Xbox running XBMC) will be Aspire Revo running Debian and XBMC. 1GB RAM upgradeable to 4GB and 160GB disk for $199? Yes. And with VDPAU support, VGA, and HDMI outputs. Perfecto. Not to mention that the power consumption is super-low...

Re:Acer Revo

[chihowa]

There's a mini PCIe slot in it as well. In an effort to make it as clean looking as possible (it's in a somewhat exposed location and WAF must be taken into account), I added an internal wireless card and antennas. There is also a VESA mount available for it to allow it to be nicely mounted to a wall/ceiling/monitor.

XBMC itself is extremely configurable and very easy to use. I have it set up to stream movies and TV shows from the home file server, and the whole system is very quiet and responsive. It's one of the few household projects that my wife is actually happy about using and having around.

Boxee

[RingDev]

I pulled out an out dated PC, stuck an ATI all-in-wonder card in it and plugged it into the TV. I've been running Boxee on it for a while now. I like that it has such a variety of "apps" that aggregate videos from Hulu, Netflix, the major networks, as well as plays my DVDs and ripped movies*.

Honestly though, Boxee is still a little rough. The interface is excellent, but it feels a bit laggy at times (although this is an older PC), and their double buffering interface leaves a bit to be desired. I'm sure they'll continue to improve it, but some times I just drop out of Boxee and go to the source site directly.

-Rick

*Legally ripped movies that is. Teething toddlers will chew on anything, even your limited run collectors edition of the LoTR trilogy.

Boxee

[madmaxjr57]

http://www.boxee.tv/ has been a pretty decent means of getting various web series onto my TV. Seems to have some issues pulling hulu content though. Does a wonderful job of playing local content too.

Boxee or Plex

[AugstWest]

I've been using XBMC since.... well, since it first came out for the original XBox. It didn't stream web content though, and to this day it's still a PITA to stream through the modern XBMC, even in Windows.

If you've got a spare Mac (which would be pretty rare), I would highly recommend Plex. Using the Apple remote works beautifully, and it handles Hulu, Netflix, YouTube and anything else you could throw at it. It also does Pandora, which is awesome, since the system is already hooked up to the stereo.

If you're using Linux or Windows, I would go with Boxee. It does all of the Hulu/Netflix/Pandora/ESPN360/etc. content, and has finally become genuinely stable enough for everyday use, even for my mildly non-technical wife, who has to keep TV rolling for 2 kids on demand.

I keep the actual box that does the streaming in the basement to avoid any sort of fan noise, and just run an HDMI cable and a digital audio cable(I use SPDIF, simply because it was the simplest to run and I had stacks of long RCA cables) coming up through the floor and hooked to the flat screen in the living room.

If you also run a long USB cable, you can hook up all kinds of stuff, especially joysticks for emulation :]

Let's see any of the hardware HTPC options out there run ColecoVision :]

Re:Boxee or Plex

[dmiller1984]

I have to second the recommendation of Plex. I bought a Mac Mini and set it up with a RAID array that I already had. I'm still in the process of ripping all my DVDs using HandBrake for the Mac, but those that I have ripped play in Plex beautifully. It's also nice to have easy access to Hulu as well as other web video through the program. It still has a few quirks, but nothing deal-breaking. Since it is based off of XBMC there are already a number of skins available for it as well as add-ons. The Apple Remote works well, but it will even work with nicer programmable remotes.

XBMC on Ubuntu

[Heywood J. Blaume]

http://xbmc.org/ turns a linux box into a full-screen media player with good usability. Mine has an old NVidia 6200 card, works great. Add a home theater keyboard http://www.walmart.com/ip/SPEC-01027-Wireless-Mini-Trackball-Keyboard-for-HTPC-by-Ergoguys/13215118 and you're set.

Plex and MythTV on a Mac

[GlobalEcho]

I use Plex and MythTV (+HDHomeRun tuner) on a Mac Mini. It's been very reliable, and I'm happy with everything I can do, including videoconferencing. My only wish is that I could play MythTV recordings from within Plex, but really the latest version of Myth is pretty nice to use. Oh, and that Myth on OSX would do AC3 sound passthrough.

It's worth noting that I almost never browse the web using this setup any more, because most of the websites with interesting content (Hulu, YouTube, Comedy Central) have already been integrated with Plex.

You can see my setup log here: http://public.boonstra.org/MacMiniHTPCSetup.html

Re:If you want it to act like a computer hooked to

[SpacePunk]

This works well. DVR, stream videos, etc... all with Windows Media Center. Plus what you can't get through windows media center, you can always fire up a browser, and get what you want.

Easy.

[sootman]

Mac mini, Apple remote, and Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. A bit pricey but it pretty much does everything, out of the box, with very little fiddling needed. Just need a few things, like Perian, HandBrake and/or RipIt, Hulu Desktop, Plex if you want, etc.

NIntendo Wii, Opera, www.youtube.com/xl

[WillAdams]

and I'm looking forward to the Netflix streaming disk for the Wii:

http://www.netflix.com/NRDInfo/Wii

William

Don't waste a computer.

[Dzimas]

I use a $40 Philips DVD player that has a USB port on the front. It works with flash keys and external hard drives. I simply drop the shows I want to watch onto a USB key and watch - takes only seconds to set up. The factory on-screen UI is fairly limited, but there's a brilliant hacked version that supports long file names. Similar USB-equipped DVD and Blu-Ray players are made by Samsung and are equally inexpensive. My player will be outdated in a year, and I'll just replace it with an updated equivalent. Makes far more sense than fiddling around with a nettop, PVR software, and dozens of almost-ok atom-tweaked linux variants.

Slingcatcher

[kriston]

The Slingcatcher from http://www.slingbox.com/go/slingcatcher is pretty good at doing this.

I use my wii

[mmmmbeer]

Put the homebrew channel and a media player on a wii. You can watch media files from your network or off a usb drive; you can view web pages, including flash video, using the available web browser; and of course, you can also play games. The price is pretty good, too. The down side is that it's only 480p at best.

Simple solution

[NotQuiteReal]

What's wrong with a simple box like the WDTV Live?

Re:If you want it to act like a computer hooked to

[Jeng]

Why not both?

Wireless keyboard when you are just watching TV.

Netbook for when you are watching TV and surfing at the same time.

It's not like one makes you unable to do the other.

Dirt cheep route..

[Pontiac]

I did it the easy way..

I got a $99 lease return PC from Tiger and stuffed it in the stereo cabinet.
I already have a wireless router in the cabinet for the PVR so network access was easy..
Toss in a HDMI capable video card (Nvidia 210 for $40) and it's almost done..
Wireless keyboard and mouse sit on the TV cabinet..
PC runs UltraVNC so I can remote control it from my laptop..

We mostly stream Netflx movies on it.. Sometimes the Kids play games on the big TV from the keyboard/mouse..

Re:Er, a PS3

[mrjohnson]

Netflix rocks on the PS3...

Re:If you want it to act like a computer hooked to

[DarkVader]

Exactly this.

My setup is a Mac mini, DVI-HDMI cable, and optical digital audio, with a wireless keyboard and mouse. It works just like a computer, because it's a computer.

The content lives on an Xserve in another room, hardwired gigabit ethernet to the TV computer. The mini has a 1.66 Core Duo, is about 4 years old, and it doesn't have any problem playing 1080p content.

I'm pretty happy with it.

Re:If you want it to act like a computer hooked to

[jackjumper]

My logitech dinovo keyboard works great all the time from across the room. Of course it's not a full size keyboard, but for a TV computer (A Dell Zino), it's fine. I'm not writing a novel or anything on it

Popcorn Hour

[headkase]

Nothing beats a: Popcorn Hour device. It integrates into your home network and is great for getting media off of your PCs to your TV - wherever your network is it is. It doesn't handle DRM well but hey if your files are DRM'd your doing it wrong ;) It is a Linux device that integrates fine with Windows stuff that is what it is meant for but being Linux it also handles all your Linux systems, it supports NFS and even has Linux versions of the media servers to run on your Linux box.

Re:If you want it to act like a computer hooked to

[cayenne8]

I agree with the computer just dedicated for TV. I use MythTV for all sorts of things (DVR, media jukebox, weather, etc.)

I'm about to expand it from all on one system..to breaking it into its client server components and have one big machine in my office out of the way with tons of drive space, and use it to feed smaller boxes by each tv/stereo in the house. I'm looking to maybe get the little Acer Revo for each front end box. It looks nice and small and quiet, and I think I'm reading if you use VDPAU on it...you can use it to view HD.

I don't have wireless keyboard/mouse yet, but will add those on...wired isn't bothering me right now since I'm running off a HD projector so projector, computer and controls are all near me on the couch so, no wires running around with this setup.

When I set up the front end boxes with flat panel tvs, I'll do wireless then. But that is what I watch tv through...and just alt-tab to do real computer stuff. If I'm in the middle of a live show, I hit pause, do computer...then back, but most of the time with a DVR, I RARELY watch live tv anymore...I just don't like fscking with the commercials.

Re:If you want it to act like a computer hooked to

[marsu_k]

Yes, ION-based nettops seem very ideal as MythTV frontends, I just ordered an Asus EB1501. I did consider the Revo as well, but S/PDIF out and an integrated DVD drive were among my requirements - if you don't need them then certainly the Revo (or similiar nettops, there are many models to choose from) fit the bill. VDPAU on ION offers hardware accelerated MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 AVC, so playing back even 1080p material shouldn't be an issue. ION doesn't support MPEG 4 ASP (XviD/DivX), but there's hardly a need for it; even my way-older-than-ancient PIII@700 MHz laptop will happily play those.

Re:If you want it to act like a computer hooked to

[AvitarX]

http://www.google.com/products?q=asrock%20330&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wf

HDMI out, check
Linux Support, check
Low Power, check
H.264 playback, check

I don't think one needs to even spend $1,000 any more. perhaps comprimise with the blue tooth, but not drop thousand of $.

My Tested Solution:

[Kenwoodism]

Although I can't speak as to setting yourself up with a laptop (as I only have a desktop), I was looking for a setup exactly as described - using the TV as a monitor on which I can watch media, browse, play games, and whatnot - while still maintaining a secondary monitor on which to perform more meticulous tasks that I can't see on the TV. My desktop is setup with a dual DVI-out graphics card (Nvidia GTS 250 to be exact), with one DVI to HDMI running to the television, and a second 15' DVI to DVI running to a monitor which I have on a station next to my sofa. I'm a little obsessive, and as such have a Logitech Revolution wireless keyboard/mouse combo which works fantastically for controlling things from around my apartment, and a wired keyboard/mouse for when I'm stationary. Since DVI to HDMI doesn't support sound, I routed sound to my stereo receiver via R/L audio cables and an adapter - this could support up to as many speakers as your sound card/receiver can support. On the software/OS end of things I'm running Win7, with the secondary monitor as primary. Furthermore, you can support as many monitors as you have ports on your graphics card(s). 2 graphics cards = 4 monitors :O Hope this helps a bit - I've used this setup for over 8 months now and it is FANTASTIC!