usb to hdmi

[Flump]

a friend has a computer which is in a different room from the tv
but she wants to watch home movies and look at pictures
from the computer, the tv has a hdmi port.

so i wondered if a usb to hdmi adaptor would carry the picture and sound ?
there seems to be a lot of difference in the prices like from £10 to £70 but most
of them look similar so i wonder why the big difference in price.

i already told her she needed a long vga cable but after i bought it for her i realised
sound wont go to the tv so ill have to keep that cable for my own use some time
and i dont want to make another costly mistake.

[Bored@Work]

Cable? Meh. MK808B or one of the many similar devices, a DLNA player on the stick, a DLNA media server on the computer (even Microsoft Windows Media Player), an access point (typical as part of the home router). Done.

[Flump]

the lady in question is 50+ and lives alone so it needs to be a nice simple solution
i dont know anything about your sugestions but they sound a bit to complicated for her

[davorin]

The lady is 50+ but stores the movies on her computer? (o;

You could maybe tell a little what kind of TV she has...like if it has the capability for a WLAN adapter to be attached...

Even if you could for for a USB/HDMI adapter, which I've never seen before...she would have to switch the display output to the adapter...
Another drawback is, how to control the movie selection/playback..dunno if those USB/HDMI adapters support CEC...

Somehow the lady must get the movies from somewhere and store it locally...so why not store on a USB stick and plug it either onto the TV, if it has the capability, or use a small and cheap media player which accepts a USB  dongle...

[Rasz]

just buy a long hdmi cable, problem solved

[davorin]

There are even wireless HDMI adapters available...but then again...he never mentioned the PC has a HDMI output...

Burn the movies to a rewritable DVD (o;

[Sebastian]

If the TV supports DLNA, set up a DLNA Server on the PC. I can recommend Serviio.

[Bored@Work]

If the TV supports DLNA, set up a DLNA Server on the PC. I can recommend Serviio.

Was already rejected. Too complicated ...

[Flump]

the computer she has is old so just usb ports on it, the tv has a hdmi port
i didnt think she would have to switch the output on the computer
i thought it would automatically stream like the vga output

she has home movies her kids take and lots of pictures on the pc

[wraper]

does it have DVI?

[Flump]

Was already rejected. Too complicated ...

i am not going to reccomend anything to her unless im confident we can sort any instalation issues
or future running ises out over the phone and i never heard of dnla so im looking for a simpler
ideally plug and play solution like plug a cable from here in to the tv , select source and it works

[Flump]

wrapper - i dont know, im trying to find out
will post the make and model soon as i can findout

[davorin]

Maybe the TV brand/model would help...also the PC model, OS and the like....

And there's still the question how you would control the playback remotely...there mus be a sort of media software running on the PC which accepts remote commands...

So it is not only the way from the PC to the TV, but also the way back...

[wraper]

wrapper - i dont know, im trying to find out
will post the make and model soon as i can findout

If there is, then you can use passive DVI->HDMI adapter. And if you are lucky with GPU, then it even will output sound over HDMI.

[davorin]

How does she get the movies onto the PC?

Dunno about other countries....but so far I only know Switzerland, the country I live in, where it is legally allowed to download movies, music, you name it (o;

Okay..I can only suck it at 250MB/sec...*sniff

[Rigby]

http://www.amazon.com/Twisted-Veins-Adapter-Supports-Ethernet/dp/B00FX867JC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1406669012&sr=8-3&keywords=50%27+hdmi+cable&dpPl=1

I don't have this cable, but I have a similar one, and it works great.

[TheBorg]

Such as this? Expensive though.
http://www.amazon.com/SIIG-Wireless-HDMI-Audio-JU-HM0211-S1/dp/B004VB9F50

This is cheaper, but looks to be just VGA
http://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Multimedia-WPCTVPRO-VStream-Wireless/dp/B00AKYVMG2/ref=pd_cp_pc_2

[gxti]

You won't be able to play HD video over a USB video adapter unless it's USB 3. And a laptop that doesn't have HDMI or DisplayPort out definitely does not have USB 3.

EDIT: unless those devices crush the crap out of the video stream. Maybe she's old enough that she won't notice.

[SirNick]

Conversion from USB to HDMI isn't directly possible.  There are (poorly-named) USB-to-whatever adapters, but they're actually just video cards with a USB interface instead of PCI.  Problem is, USB doesn't have the bandwidth for raw video.  If you've ever been.. eh.. luck enough to use a laptop with an external monitor connected with a USB interface, you'll quickly realize how painfully slow those things are.  Full-screen video at 30fps?  Not happening.

Good HDMI cables can go quite a distance, but when you cross the threshold of reliability, they turn sour pretty quickly.  When you're at the threshold, problems can be intermittent and thus absolutely no fun to troubleshoot.  Success with HDMI-over-UTP extenders varies widely.  VGA over UTP will work but may ghost a little.

The media player market is in shambles right now.  AppleTV works really well if you're totally invested in the iTunes ecosphere.  Many other players (Roku, Chromecast, FireTV) have Plex clients available, but then you get into support issues like getting media onto the server device, and training grandma how to use the client.  But, you'll have some of those problems anyway just having media on a PC.  If you want to avoid that, pick a box, sign her up for Netflix, Amazon Prime, and/or Hulu Plus, and hope she has a good Internet package.

Basically:  This stuff is all a lot harder than it should be.  You can thank the MPAA and various content producers / distributors for that.  The technology is there.  But, the content guys are trying to strong-arm the consumer into doing things their own way, while consumers respond by pirating everything on the Internet.  Anyone interested in taking advantage of local online storage of legally-acquired media is pretty much trapped in the cross-fire.  Vendors that try to manufacturer hardware to make it possible either get sued, lose (or never gain) the ability to license all the necessary (....well... "prolific" anyway) codecs, find themselves unable to strike deals with distributors, or otherwise die on the vine.  Progress is grand.

[lowimpedance]

 Well given that its home movies and photo's , the 'burn to DVD' idea actually starts to look like the 'simple' solution that's going to be easily understood by the elderly lady !.
 Or she buy's a TV with USB and just uploads the holiday movie/photos to a memory stick and plays them from there on the TV.

[miguelvp]

50 is not elderly, at least I keep telling myself that

Anyways, most modern TVs that have HDMI usually have a VGA input, since you already got the long VGA cable, just get an audio cable as long (TVs that have VGA usually have audio in). Connect it with a VGA KVM switch with audio and you are done.

[Bored@Work]

i never heard of dnla

See, that is the point. Instead of investigating suggestions you dismissed suggestions right away because you don't know them. Apparently the only kind of solution you know is cable, so the only answer you won't dismiss immediately is cable. But why then do you come here, wasting our time, if you don't want to hear any other answer but the answer you already know, cable?

I could have given you more suggestions, requiring investigation, like Miracast. But what is the point, if you can't get up and invest them?

[Galenbo]

See, that is the point. Instead of investigating suggestions you dismissed suggestions right away because you don't know them. Apparently the only kind of solution you know is cable, so the only answer you won't dismiss immediately is cable. But why then do you come here, wasting our time, if you don't want to hear any other answer but the answer you already know, cable?

It's even worse. Doesn't know that VGA doesn't carry sound, unable to buy a sound cable, looking for a USB solution because all the other computer ports are on "the back side" And afther that, I'm sure "the old +50 lady" will want a remote control, none of both already thought about that.

Solution in this case: Buy a sofa to put behind the PC, or buy a PC to put before the sofa.

[miguelvp]

They do make RF remotes for PCs, just saying

[cimmo]

Copy the movies and any other content (pics/music) on an external hard disk, buy a media player box, plug HDD>MediaPlayer>HDMI port, grab media player's remote control and that's it.

Fine print, make sure media player box is clever enough to recognize NTFS or you'll need to reformat the HDD to FAT32 - doable, but not recommended. I say this because there are still supposedly 'smart' tvs being sold that only recognize FAT32 formatted external media. No doubt some vendors are also flogging media player boxes similarly crippled.

2nd fine print - some media player boxes do not properly recognize HDDs greater than 2TB. So just get a 2Tb drive or  smaller.