How to stream TV to my home cinema?

[LaurasOtherHalf]

Having finally joined the modern age and hooked up my house to the Internet I'm starting to look at how we can view some online content. The equipment I have is as follows;

Sky HD box
Yamaha BluRay player
BT youview box (the free one that doesn't record)
MacBook Pro

These are then all fed into my Yamaha AV Reciever which distributes the picture and sound to;

Yamaha Projector (using HD Fury as it has no hdmi port) and 7.1 surround
Sony HD smart tv with Sony Sound-bar

Having turned on the BT youview box I was frankly astounded by the picture quality on my Sony tv, so much better than sky HD but there's two problems with it; the user interface seems award at best and it doesn't want to lay ball with my projector. That's possibly an issue with the HD fury but I can't be sure. Point is, albeit the picture is amazing I'm thinking of not bothering with it. Plus it seems pretty useless that it doesn't record.

I am however interested in accessing online content, let's say Netflix for "making a murderer" and Amazon for "new top gear" as well as catch up TV etc.

Of everything I've got, what will be best to use or do I need a new piece of hard wear to be able to access everything?

[Type R Tom]

Have you looked at Chromecasts?

[megaphone]

Your Sky HD box does catch up and I think Amazon Prime is on there, just connect it to the router, best cabled if you can, newer Sky HD boxes can connect via WiFi.

Ditto, your BT box will also do catch up and I think it will do Netflix.

Also what TV do you have? If it's a Smart TV it may well have Netflix and Amazon available, again it will need to be connected to the router.

Edited by megaphone on Wednesday 6th April 08:09

[LaurasOtherHalf]

Type R Tom said:

Have you looked at Chromecasts?

no, though if i'm honest i'm not entirely sure what they do

megaphone said:

Your Sky HD box does catch up and I think Amazon Prime is on there, just connect it to the router, best cabled if you can, newer Sky HD boxes can connect via WiFi.

Ditto, your BT box will also do catch up and I think it will do Netflix.

Also what TV do you have? If it's a Smart TV it may well have Netflix and Amazon available, again it will need to be connected to the router.

Edited by megaphone on Wednesday 6th April 08:09

i have now wired the sky box to the router and it does catch up, can't say I've looked into it too much though and haven't seen amazon. our tv can do netflix over wifi though this will mean i can't show it on the projector.

the bt box is a strange one as it simply won't send it's signal to the projector, or more likely the projector can't read it. it's simply presumption it's the ageing hd fury that's causing the issue.

[Digitalize]

If you want Netflix and Amazon Prime you need to pick up an Amazon Fire stick, as Amazon don't support Chromecast.

That is if your TV doesn't already have its own apps.

[LaurasOtherHalf]

Digitalize said:

If you want Netflix and Amazon Prime you need to pick up an Amazon Fire stick, as Amazon don't support Chromecast.

That is if your TV doesn't already have its own apps.

does the firestick simply connect to a monitor via hdmi?

[ajprice]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

Digitalize said:

If you want Netflix and Amazon Prime you need to pick up an Amazon Fire stick, as Amazon don't support Chromecast.

That is if your TV doesn't already have its own apps.

does the firestick simply connect to a monitor via hdmi?

Yes, it's not powered from the HDMI though, it comes with a USB cable and power adapter

[megaphone]

What resolution is the BT box set to? Try changing it, to 720p or 1080i. Possibly your PJ cannot take a higher res? Sky HD outputs 1080i by default.

[megaphone]

ajprice said:

LaurasOtherHalf said:

Digitalize said:

If you want Netflix and Amazon Prime you need to pick up an Amazon Fire stick, as Amazon don't support Chromecast.

That is if your TV doesn't already have its own apps.

does the firestick simply connect to a monitor via hdmi?

Yes, it's not powered from the HDMI though, it comes with a USB cable and power adapter

You could plug straight into your AV receiver, if you have a spare HDMI in.

[LaurasOtherHalf]

ajprice said:

LaurasOtherHalf said:

Digitalize said:

If you want Netflix and Amazon Prime you need to pick up an Amazon Fire stick, as Amazon don't support Chromecast.

That is if your TV doesn't already have its own apps.

does the firestick simply connect to a monitor via hdmi?

Yes, it's not powered from the HDMI though, it comes with a USB cable and power adapter

ok, so is it a simple choice between this and say, apple tv? what is the content on amazon tv like?

[ajprice]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

ok, so is it a simple choice between this and say, apple tv? what is the content on amazon tv like?

Amazon: iPlayer, ITV, All4 and Channel 5 player, Amazon, Netflix, YouTube, MUBI, Curzon, Plex
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Instant-Video/b/ref=nav_sh...

Apple TV: iPlayer, iTunes, Netflix, YouTube, NowTV, Plex...
http://www.apple.com/uk/tv/entertainment/

There's also Kodi for both.

[Digitalize]

Basically if you want to watch Amazon Prime, you need to go for the Amazon stick as they don't allow their service on to competitors. That excludes game consoles though. Otherwise I'd be suggesting the Apple TV, if you wanted to spend that much, or Chromecast to save money.

Personally think Chromecast is pretty untouchable for its price point.

[Type R Tom]

Digitalize said:

Basically if you want to watch Amazon Prime, you need to go for the Amazon stick as they don't allow their service on to competitors. That excludes game consoles though. Otherwise I'd be suggesting the Apple TV, if you wanted to spend that much, or Chromecast to save money.

Personally think Chromecast is pretty untouchable for its price point.

There are work arounds for Prime on Chromecast but they can be a bit fiddly.

[CardinalFang]

Amazon Fire Stick vote from me LOH. Not an Apple household, but have friends who use AppleTV & swear by it. I use Plex as the media server software on an old laptop, where I keep my media (downloads, not iTunes). Plex app installed on the Fire stick (https://plex.tv/amazonfiretv. it's a download from the Amazon app store) & the laptop(Plex) streams to the TV (Plex). Plex is the bit that catalogues your files & gets the meta data - like iTunes). Advantages: easy to set up (I'm very far from being tech savvy & the wrong side of 50); interface is simple, bargainous for an Amazon Prime user. Includes 1 day parcel delivery, prime video (their Netflix), prime music (their Spotify, I think), prime photos (their Icloud, but unlimited storage, I think) & some sort of Kindle library. Disadvantages: it struggles with HD media - occasionally buffers - usually solved with a hard reboot of the stick (TBF the laptop is v old & maybe a direct ethernet connection would be better, but the port is knackered); also more of the amazon video than I expected is paid content. stick comes with an HDMI extender, which I've read is to be recommended as it puts the stick further away from any TV interference. Very happy with the result.

[boxst]

ajprice said:

Amazon: iPlayer, ITV, All4 and Channel 5 player, Amazon, Netflix, YouTube, MUBI, Curzon, Plex
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Instant-Video/b/ref=nav_sh...

Apple TV: iPlayer, iTunes, Netflix, YouTube, NowTV, Plex...
http://www.apple.com/uk/tv/entertainment/

There's also Kodi for both.

I didn't realise that the new Apple TV allowed side loading of Applications. Cool.

(I ditched Apple TV after V2 when it became impossible to jailbreak / install anything interesting)

[Digitalize]

It doesn't support sideloading, it has an App Store, it basically runs on a modified iOS. Plex is officially supported.

[gizlaroc]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

Having turned on the BT youview box I was frankly astounded by the picture quality on my Sony tv, so much better than sky HD

Something not right here??

What is your sky box set to under picture options?

What output are you using? HDMI?


You sure your picture settings on your TV are right?

What TV is it?

[TEKNOPUG]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

Having finally joined the modern age and hooked up my house to the Internet I'm starting to look at how we can view some online content. The equipment I have is as follows;

Sky HD box
Yamaha BluRay player
BT youview box (the free one that doesn't record)
MacBook Pro

These are then all fed into my Yamaha AV Reciever which distributes the picture and sound to;

Yamaha Projector (using HD Fury as it has no hdmi port) and 7.1 surround
Sony HD smart tv with Sony Sound-bar

Having turned on the BT youview box I was frankly astounded by the picture quality on my Sony tv, so much better than sky HD but there's two problems with it; the user interface seems award at best and it doesn't want to lay ball with my projector. That's possibly an issue with the HD fury but I can't be sure. Point is, albeit the picture is amazing I'm thinking of not bothering with it. Plus it seems pretty useless that it doesn't record.

I am however interested in accessing online content, let's say Netflix for "making a murderer" and Amazon for "new top gear" as well as catch up TV etc.

Of everything I've got, what will be best to use or do I need a new piece of hard wear to be able to access everything?

I presume that you have a SKY subscription? In which case, why on earth have you got a SKY HD box AND a BT box plugged into your AVR? There is nothing on the BT box that you can't watch on SKY. Even BT Sport you can just get the channels activated on SKY. Just use the BT Box on another TV in the house.

With regards to SKY and catch up services, don't bother with any of the freeview catch up services - iplayer, ITV etc. If there is anything that you have missed or want to watch, just search for it in the SKY TV Guide and if it's available via catch-up, you can just download it from there. For SKY boxsets etc, you'll need to go into the apps themselves.

I'd invest in some home-plugs so that yo can hard-wire your connections and not rely on wifi.

You could try Apple TV or a Firestick if you want to stream on the fly. Personally, I much prefer to fully download what I want to watch, rather than have to rely on internet streaming & buffering. So you could do it really simply, just by downloading whatever you want to watch and then attaching your MAC to the AVR. Or stream from the MAC using Chromecast or similar. Some people use PLEX as said, I prefer Serviio but they all do the same thing.

[TX1]

I also prefer to first download and stream from my PC via Serviio software straight to my Panasonic smart TV.
Also have a 3TB Seagate Central which stores my downloads and streams direct to the tv.
You can access the content of both the above directly from a smart tv remote control, play, pause etc.

[Collectingbrass]

I'd get a second hand PS3 or Xbox from ebay and use that.