Home TV broadcasting (HDMI/streaming over IP)

At home we have one central media PC (a Mac Mini) in the lounge. We only ever watch stuff either off BluRay or streamed from BBC iPlayer of Netflix. As an aside, we have recently cancelled our television licsnse; you no longer need one if you do not watch live TV.

The HDMI outputs from the Mac Mini and the BluRay player are mixed/switched by my Onkyo amplifier. At present it just drives the projector screen, but that does not work during the day (bright light) and is a pain to bring down for short viewings.

Therefore we are getting another screen to go above the fireplace, which is about 10m away. However, the route an HDMI cable would have to take to be tidy, and having just moved in and spent a lot on decorating I want it tidy, would make it too long for the signal. However, I did get a CAT6 ethernet socket installed near where I want the fixed wall mount TV.

Further, we want a TV in our bedroom, ideally on the ceiling mounted above the bed so we can watch it from the bed. Again, there is easy access to my home network since most of the distribution happens in the loft.

We don’t actually watch much TV thus having one centralised source will be fine. The other source would be CCTV probably (for example seeing who is at the door when we are in the lounge) but again that is over Internet Protocol (IP) via the home network.

What I therefore want is the ability to broadcast an HDMI signal over IP. I’m currently considering two solutions:

1) Getting a Rasberry Pi and using XBMC to stream the video.

2) Buying a device to do it, like the StarTech HDMI over IP Extender.

3) Buy screens that have the capability to stream media built in, such as a Samsung D7000

Option 1 would be good since I’d like to do something similar in the office. We are taking another floor and I’d like to have a virtual window between the floors – live streaming to connect the rooms in effect. First things first I need to get my mits on a Raspberry Pi though!

In the mean time for home though option 3 looks like the most practical since I’ve not actually got the screens. Therefore I’ve placed the order for one of those big Samsungs (which also look very purdy!) and will report on how easy they are to use for streaing from Netflix and such!

Update: 55″ Samsung D7000 (UE55D7000)

I went with the IP-enabled TV option, pictured right. It is a beautiful piece of kit – I especially like the thin, translucent bezel. However, it was a bit of a pain to use at first. I spent while fighting with its Web browser getting increasingly enraged by the very poor “touchpad” on the remote control (which sprayed so much infrared around it caused my projector screen to randomly go up and down, and was almost useless as a mouse control) and the fact that there was no sensible way to use the keyboard.

In fact, on Googleing it transpires that you cannot connect a keyboard by bluetooth or any other means which seems daft for a Web-enabled device! I had (foolishly) assumed that one could do so. I tried the smartphone app and that is just a very basic volume / channel control so no use there.

However, on returning to the home screen it told me it had finished downloading various apps, including ones for Netflix and LoveFilm! *facepalm* The apps were very straight forwards to use, apart from an annoying buy in Netflix where it does not recognise email addresses with hyphens – a problem for those of us with hyphenated names! I got around that by changing the email address I use for Netflix.

Once into the apps everything has gone smoothly and the quality is superb. I still wish to be able to stream content from local sources so the next step is to investigate DNLA/

Update: StarTech

I bought a StarTech HDMI over IP extender thinking it would do what I wanted, but it turns out that this is purely a Windows device that allows you to drive a screen from your Windows PC via the network.

I thought it would function as a “bridge” between two HDMI ports (one in from my lounge AV stack, one out to the TV at the far end of the lounge or to the TV in the bedroom) but looking at the manual there is no such functionality. Back to the drawing board…

Posted on March 12, 2012 at 23:10

13 comments

Robin St.Clair Mar 12, 2012 23:53 If you route everything that is not streamed through a media server such as - http://download.iomega.com/com/iomega-personal-cloud/hmnhd_ss_uk_lr.pdf - then almost all modern TVs, projectors, etc can access the media server using IP, either wired or wirelessly. Streamed media can be directly accessed using modern IP aware TVs and projectors can be HDMI attached to one of these

iPlayer is getting better and better with IP aware TVs
Martyn Drake Mar 29, 2012 09:41 The trouble with buying TVs with streaming built-in is that unless the firmware is really upgradable (or even hackable), they're going to get old very quickly (if only for pixel resolution - we can almost certainly expect bigger and better res displays sooner rather than later). I'm not yet sold on a "smart TV" as yet. Hence I'd prefer to go with option 2 or 1.
Robin St.Clair Mar 29, 2012 13:21 My experience with DNLA has been good, it appears to work well, the various servers, including Mac and Windoze machines, are picked up by the TV along with any plugged in USB devices as 'sources'.

Do investigate your keypad options. In my case, Sony provides an app for laptops and a better one for Vaio laptops that lets you use the lappie's keyboard.

If you attach an IP aware DVD/BluRay player to a non IP aware TV, then you get all the benefits - there are some nice Sony BluRay players at sensible places, that you could use the keypad app with.
Neil Apr 17, 2012 22:11 My biggest (and nicest) tech surprise recently was when I bought a Netgear RND4000 ReadyNAS. These are super cheap these days. I was accumulating a bunch if video files on the NAS and struggling with the ergonomics of streaming them to VLC on my laptop to watch them. Such a drag. Anyway, I was playing with my Samsung IP enabled TV (an older model than yours) and noticed that..... MY NAS APPEARED AS AN INPUT DEVICE. Yes, so obsessed was I with making things difficult, I'd missed that I could just select my NAS as an input then select from a file list the programme I wanted to watch. Simple.
Robin St.Clair Apr 19, 2012 17:53 For GBP200 you can buy a top of the range 4K and 3D Blu-Ray and DVD player that has 2 HDMI interfaces, plus Ethernet, Wireless, 2xUSB, DLNA, 3D streaming, i.e. all the bells and whistles. This turns any HDMI equipped TV into a Smart TV, so no need to distribute HDMI as this will find what you are looking for, live streaming or something on your server or off a USB device, this really works.

You can get a Blue-Ray player for less than half that if you forgo some of the fancy bits.

The firmware IS upgradeable (about once every 3 months from Sony, automatically in the middle of the night).

This way you don't have to distribute HDMI, which can get pricey, and complicated.

From my smart TV, I can see visitors' wireless devices which are DLNA servers as well as the permanently wired devices. My TV is connected to the Gigabit network and is equally happy to go wireless.

I really can't see the downside in this sort of approach - and if you haven't seen 4K, have a look on YouTube.
katecw Apr 29, 2012 16:36 @Neil Interesting, thanks. I have an ancient ReadyNAS box but I'd not considered just streaming content from such a device. It should not be beyond my wit to copy all my DVDs / BlueRays to a server and then stream them from there. I shall have a play with the options!
Robin St.Clair Apr 30, 2012 13:03 Have you considered Ultra Violet?
Robin St.Clair Apr 30, 2012 13:22 Freemake handles BluRay formats and its Free (what's not to like)?
Older NAS may drop the odd frame when streaming HD formats. Newer boxes are multi-core.
Dweller Jun 2, 2012 13:06 You could always split the hdmi with a powered splitter, and run one of the outputs to the tv, and the other via a cat5/6 dongle to extend hdmi over twin runs of cat5/6 cabling (not the same as hdmi over ethernet, same cable, different usage). Or swap the splitter for a cheap hdmi 4x2 matrix, and have any of 4 sources sent to 2 outputs.. or.. bite the bullet and go for something like the HDBaseT 4x4 matrix, that will take 4 HDMI sources, and send them over a single cat5/6 cable, with infrared return for control from the destinations, and 100mbit ether carried over the same cable.. amazing bit of kit, not cheap tho.
Tiziano Aug 29, 2012 21:03 Hi Kate i think we have the product you are looking for. Unfortunatelly we only sell in Brazil and South America but you can still find it at hdelity.com in united kingdom. the product converts hdmi to an ip protocol and you can distribute to many displays. You can take a look at our website (wich is in portuguese) to know some applications.
Beech Horn Dec 15, 2012 16:49 If you have a VLAN capable managed switch why not use a justaddpower HDMI over IP solution?
Fozzie Dec 21, 2012 10:44 Looking from a functionality point of view, consider that you need a server to stream video streams, a client to recieve and playback streams and perhaps additionally a tuner to tune in to TV and radio. You could look for these embedded in equipment like TV's, settop boxes and/or BluRay players, but that will usually mean higher costs and limitations from the manufacturer.

I would recommend Raspberry Pi as the client, since it is the most user friendly, it has bluetooth to connect your keyboard and mouse, it will play almost any stream imaginable, it is small enough to hide behind the screen and so cheap you could have two if you wanted. Also you can find a host of softwares for it, like XMBC or Android apps that will do what you need it to do. I didn't look for it but there is probably an iPlayer for Android. As a NAS (server) I would recommend Synology, a 212+ would do just fine for your situation. If you need a tuner you may consider Anysee's N7 as an IP broadcast cable TV tuner, although I have no experience with that.

Be aware that if you want HD 1080p signals streaming on your network it needs to be a gigabit network (including all parts of it like switches et cetera), to retain full quality. As long as the distances are no more than say 10 metres CAT5e should do fine, CAT6 is better.
Mike Smith Feb 10, 2013 10:54 Hey Kate, We do something similar but use a pc in the lounge running xbmc which then outputs into a 1:8 HDMI splitter which distributes media around the house. We can control it via our android phones (which like most people we carry them with us everywhere including to bed).

I was unaware that we could cancel our tv licence as the tvs themself are capable of receiving a transmission even though there's no aerial plugged into them.

Kate's Comment