Wireless "3-Screens" Home Theater Setup

[Generic User #2]

My aunt has recently completed construction of her new home and I'm trying to outfit it with an 'ultra-modern' entertainment system.

She expects to have a TV in every living room and bedroom, meaning there will be about 8 TVs in the house. 5 of these sets will be 40-42" sets, another 2 will be 55", and the last will be about 60-65". As well, cable will be provided by a Telus Optic TV subscription (if the specific plan matters, let me know). A major requirement will be no wires running for more than 2-3 feet; directly from the cable wall outlet to the TV next to the cable wall outlet . There is NO in-wall ethernet.

The current infrastructure involvement is a plain Dell PC and a Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro (I believe - the one with the keyboard).

I am open to pretty much any software and hardware options.

Some of her described use-cases include:

*She goes out to spend time with her nieces. While there, she takes a couple of pictures. Once she goes home, she heads to the living room, pulls out her phone, runs an app, and the pictures pop up on the TV there. Gallery navigation is controlled through the phone. Only that TV will show the pictures; the TV in the guest room is unaffected. The TV goes back to whatever it was showing when she disconnects through the phone software.

*She is watching a rented DVD (don't laugh) by herself on the desktop. When her husband gets home, he wants to watch the movie as well. They both move into the living room and they use the TV remote to get the laptop to stream to the living room TV(movie progress is maintained of course).

*She is hosting a party at her house and remembers a funny picture on facebook. She grabs a remote, goes to a facebook directory(or simply a generic mass photo directory), selects it, and it pops up on the TV. (NOTE: I will handle downloading of the FB photos to some sort of networked storage).

*She grabs her smartphone and uses it as a remote for the nearest TV. (this is honestly not that big of an issue).

Just a note here, my aunt is exceptionally technology illiterate (the most complex thing she can do is texting on her phone - assume she can't use a mouse or keyboard equivalents). Gallery-like interfaces are greatly preferred to file names.

In addition to working with her devices, anyone should be able to bring their phone over (this includes iphones, android, and WP8), connect to wifi (or some other form of device registration), and 'push' their media to the TVs as well.

To sum up these use-cases, take any media playing anywhere in the house(DVDs, network storage, internet feeds, phone media) and stream it to any screen(smartphone, laptop/desktop, TV) using the nearest interface(smartphone, TV remote, laptop keyboard).

So, is this all possible?

Also, I've never dealt very much with networking on TVs and hardly any media usage on my PC. So, explain things to me like i'm a guy that has only watched movies from DVDs.

[supaflyx3]

Just a note, if they plan on using more than 2 TVs at a time on telus's optik TV it won't be optimal because it runs off their internet services and not through cable like shaws does, you also require an ethernet connection to all telus boxes IIRC so if there isn't any in-wall ethernet ports that's going to become a problem.

[Arinoth]

It's a shame she doesn't live out in Eastern Canada. Bell Aliant out here is about to roll out completely wireless experience, aka HD wireless feed to your TVs.

I don't think you'll have enough bandwith too to do more then a few HD devices (presumably at once) off of a single router.

[Generic User #2]

Originally Posted by supaflyx3

Just a note, if they plan on using more than 2 TVs at a time on telus's optik TV it won't be optimal because it runs off their internet services and not through cable like shaws does, you also require an ethernet connection to all telus boxes IIRC so if there isn't any in-wall ethernet ports that's going to become a problem.

oh...I did not realize that at all. I don't think they did either. Thanks for letting me know :D. You probably just saved our butts lol

Originally Posted by Arinoth

It's a shame she doesn't live out in Eastern Canada. Bell Aliant out here is about to roll out completely wireless experience, aka HD wireless feed to your TVs.

I don't think you'll have enough bandwith too to do more then a few HD devices (presumably at once) off of a single router.

can i get around this problem by using multiple routers?



the 'push smartphones pictures and video to TV' use-case is definitely the most important. is this what DLNA is for?

[supaflyx3]

Yes it is. I'm sure there are a few android set top boxes that allow DLNA and DLNA server apps for android and ios for the phones.