Thanks Ted. I appreciate that you're trying to help. I'm sorry if I'm
being unclear.
Maybe the next option is to use the TV as a dumb audio/visual
terminal to
run input from my computer. If that's an option, then here's my
situation:
I don't understand how you get to that conclusion.
If that's what you want, get an HDMI cable to hook your computer up
to your TV. Use your TV remote to select the alternate input. Use the
computer interface to choose what video you watch.
My TV would even take a VGA cable. I don't have HDMI output on my
computer nor do I have a dual-output video card. In any case, I don't
want to run a cable; it would have to be run through the floor and
under the basement ceiling in order to avoid crossing a doorway.
Warning: if you're running a Microsoft OS, it will likely want to
restrict how you use your video output with something like HDCP (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-bandwidth_Digital_Content_Protectio
n)
so,
as always, I'd advise against running Microsoft products.
It just sounds like a lot of new ways to annoy yourself. (Which,
truth to tell, all of these solutions are. #1 son used to install
high-end solutions for all of this; they meet all of your criteria
except very notably the 'cheapo' part.)
Back to your conclusion: I would suggest what you need is a small
low-power computer/settopbox hooked up to your TV via HDMI,
connecting to the internet via WiFi (I don't understand how you can
say you don't have a home network, but you do have WiFi. Perhaps you
don't have a WIRED home
network?) and controlled via a dedicated remote control and/or an
interface you can access from your computer or smartphone.
I use a router to share the internet connection among multiple
computers; some are wired, some are wireless. But all I'm doing is
sharing internet; I don't have a "network" that allows the computers
to talk to each other.
In any case, the TV is not "networkable" in that sense: it can access
a wireless internet connection but doesn't have any capability to talk
to another computer. I realize--too late--that SONY makes TVs that
have that sort of capability but this is not one of them.
As for the related cross-talk question of how you get audio to your
entertainment center, there's a strong possibility that your TV has
an Audio Out connection (analog or digital) that you run to your
amp/entertainment center. You use the TV as the UI and the
aforementioned remote to route sound to the speakers.
Yeah, I wasn't even concerned about that. It's got a 1/8 inch jack for
that.
My solution above does all of this, reading all the music (FLAC, WAV,
MP3
and OGG) from a Samba share on the home Linux box.
The specific thing I really want to do is this:
View and fully control a Flash-enabled web browser on the TV screen.
Then I can go to any number of free (as in beer) on-demand TV sites
(Hulu is the most well-known but not the only one) and watch a wider
array of programs than are available on Netflix or Hulu+.
(With the kind of computer connection I'm thinking of, I could also
use VLC to play various avi/mpg/divx files that are not subject to
DRM; Usenet still exists and is a very valuable reasource. ;-) But I'm
not likely to use that option as much, so that's why I'm focused on
the web browser thing.)
Yes, my TV will provide access to free YouTube via an app--if I want
to deal with using left/right/up/down keys on a TV remote to choose
the letters of the search term, one at a time. Yes, I have apps for
Netflix or Hulu+ and lots of other paid services on the TV. Yes, the
TV has a built-in web browser that does NOT have Flash and cannot be
controlled via any kind of wireless device other than the clumsy TV
remote, which isn't adequate.
Apple devices do not support Flash.
Mobile android devices apparently do not support Flash.
That leaves Windows or Linux. My home computer is Windows XP but I
don't think DRM issues enter into viewing a web browser on a TV screen.
I am concerned about screen resolution; I have a feeling that
outputting my customary 22" monitor's resolution to a 46" TV is going
to result in grainy images, so there needs to be some compensatory
factor for that.
Hence I need a wireless connection that will put what I am seeing on
my computer screen and hearing on my computer speakers on my TV, at a
suitable resolution for a very large screen.
If you or your son have a solution that will do that, I'm interested.
If I can do that, then I don't need a media server per se.
Thanks.
Ken Dibble
www.stic-cil.org
