Comments on: The Quest to watch Hulu on TV with an HD DVR

By: Cherie Zehm

Cherie Zehm — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 01:24:35 +0000

After 40 years in the computer industry and 22 years of trying to convince my husband that I could save money by wirelessly beaming his television shows onto our HD TV from any one of the computers I’ve built over the years; we have wound up with 2 TiVo-1 units, a DVR, and a HD DVR. I also purchased a WDTV Live Plus, which is defective; but it does work when it feels like it. I’m having a hell of a time with warranty support. I suppose my best option is to play around with one of the TiVo’s, and attempt to sell everything else. After 22 years with Direct TV, they raised our monthly bill to $126, and couldn’t explain why. I told them they either itemized the bill and explained the increase, or they’d lose a customer who had never been late with a payment. They chose to lose me.

By: Larry Howe

Larry Howe — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 03:00:48 +0000

Hi Adam, great info…I am part of the way there, but as you mention, there is no single solution yet. It seems the diagram on your original post is missing. I am wondering if you can somehow post that diagram again, a picture being worth a thousand words and all…thanks in advance!

Larry

By: Fred

Fred — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 13:48:05 +0000

It would be quite helpful if the diagram you created would display itself – is this an “April Fool’s” joke? Just kidding. The market demands an all-in-one STB and one will be here soon I am sure. It will be PC-based to run browsers & handle Flash, come with a wireless kybd+mouse, have hot swap SATA storage, DVR capability w/ record scheduling, off-air input, media card readers, Wi-Fi + 10/100/1000 and HDMI output. Sign me up, baby.

A good $600 notebook with HDMI will just about do the job now if you set it up correctly.

By: Felipe

Felipe — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:12:11 +0000

- I have a Request Media Server which allows me to watch Hulu and Youtube. In the future they will be adding Netflix, Amazon.com,… Additionally I can watch any video or music on my NAS or iTunes.
- My Samsung Blu Ray also has Netflix.
- To add assult to injury I have free over the air HD Antenna for all my local channel in case I am in the mood to watch commercials!
Bye-Bye Cox Cable and DirecTV… I no longer need you.

By: Will

Will — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 05:55:29 +0000

Good PC to TV Info, Thanks.

By: Michael

Michael — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 04:44:00 +0000

Another possible option would be a Samsung BD-P2500 – it is a Blu-Ray player that now has Netflix & Hulu support. We’re currently looking at it to stream from our Mac to a new TV. Looks like we’ll be able to do it with an Airport Express connected to the 2500 with an ethernet cable, or maybe just a plain USB wifi stick that talks to the network that way.

By: Cool Gadgets

Cool Gadgets — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:58:15 +0000

i only have an internet connection i do all these and i save a lot from cable tv bills. and i don’t even stay at home to watch tv all day. i just watch them whenever i feel so i agree with this kind of tips.

By: Shawn Oster

Shawn Oster — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 08:52:53 +0000

My setup that is highly disjointed yet so far working…

1. PC with dual tv-tuners to record analog shows like Oprah for my wife.

2. Shows are streamed to my XBox 360 via wired connection, rocks, fluid, never any buffering issues, just works.

3. Watch some movies + TV shows via Netflix Instant On on the XBox 360. Works well most of the time, some movies in HD, streams quick.

4. Purchase movies/shows via the XBox Live Marketplace, quick downloads, good selection.

5. Purchase via Amazon On Demand, stream via my PC to my XBox 360, again, works great.

The part I don’t like is having to explain to my wife where a certain episode of something is, recorded, Marketplace, Netflix or Amazon. The quality and streaming rocks, the logistics are another story. I want a one-stop shop.

By: David

David — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:24:06 +0000

Thanks for posting your research, I think I’ve been looking for something similar (I don’t have any cable TV service).
I have a PC with a huge amount of HD/SD video on it.
I have broadband internet where I watch a lot of HULU and Netfilx.
I want a piece of hardware that lets me play all that content on my TV (in full screen/full resolution).
Is there one?

By: David Nakamura

David Nakamura — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:20:17 +0000

Hi Adam- Interesting and great thoughts here. Some of my friends and I have been pursuing this goal as well – we’d all love to rid our cable bills. Here’s my current setup:
* Comcast cable “Limited” – something like $15/mo for essentially just the local channels.
* HDHomerun by SiliconDust – a dual qam (unencrypted signal) tuner. Device connects to home network.
* Vista Ultimate configured with the following:
* Networked to HDHomerun.
* Media Center uses HDHomerun to tune into unencrypted HD QAM channels.
* MCEBuddy to compress and remove commercials.
* TVersity – I *think* this is UPnP software as related to some of the tools you mention above. It streams media to my Xbox360 and transcodes as necessary. Handles my music, photos, and videos including movie collection. Also video RSS feeds, podcasts, etc.
* XBox360 – networked via cat5 to home network and acts as a Media Extender and a UPnP client to play media from TVersity.

This setup has been working very well. The Xbox handles and plays videos/movies with great fluidity – minimal buffering (wmv files start up immediately and ff and rew, pause, etc very fast.). What sorts of intial issues were you seeing?
I’ll need to read up on the UPnP sw you mention here and compare with TVersity.

I’m thinking of purchasing another XBox as another media extender for the family room as right now it is sucking $$ thanks to Comcast. Also Wii doesn’t show our movies very well wireless from the TVersity server. Any reason you can provide to consider PS3 instead of Xbox? I’m not entirely convinced that I need BlueRay and the XBox can be setup as a Media Extender with Media Center.