We are increasingly finding that people wish to connect their PCs and tablets wirelessly to their TVs both for streaming videos and pictures at home but also increasingly for ad-hoc presentations and collaboration in the office environment.
The world where you do not have to crawl under the meeting room desk looking for a monitor cable sounds idyllic but how do you achieve it? Read on for the Pro Drive low down of some of the more popular methods to achieve this.
Apple TV
Apple produce a small unit called the Apple TV which plugs into the HDMI port of your TV and can be used to mirror the screen from a Mac, iPad, iPod touch or iPhone to your TV over your WiFi network. If using an Apple TV v2 or later, you can also mirror the screen of your Windows PC using the brilliant AirParrot software which must be installed on any PC connecting to the Apple TV. Like any Apple product, the Apple TV is relatively simple to setup – something we love at Pro Drive!
Google Chromecast
The Chromecast is Google’s answer to the Apple TV and consists of a compact device that plugs into the back of your TV with USB power – very useful if your TV is wall mounted and has a USB socket on it. The Chromecast is still a work in progress and for now mirroring is limited to mirroring a tab of your Chrome browser on your PC or Mac. This will work if you are able to access your documents or presentations via the web (for example using Dropbox or Office365) but otherwise will prove somewhat limiting.
SMART TV
Some new Smart TVs now support screen mirroring but usually require dedicated software to be installed on your PC or Mac first to enable it. If your TV does support this functionality then it is certainly worth exploring as you could have a solution without any additional cost. However Pro Drive understands that performance is inconsistent between different TV brands and some systems may be tricky to setup.
Miracast
If you are lucky enough to have one of the latest Windows 8.1 laptops (such as a Surface Pro) it is likely to be compatible with the new Miracast standard. Miracast can be used to wirelessly mirror your PC screen to a Miracast compatible adaptor that plugs into your TV such as the Netgear Push2TV. The main limitation of Miracast is that being a new standard, there are only a very limited number of compatible devices currently available and no economical way of upgrading old PCs to work with it.
There continues to be many new devices being released to the market which will provide similar functionality to those mentioned above so it is always worth carrying out some research before deciding what is appropriate for you. Please call us on 0330 124 3599 if you would like to know more.
