how to connect wireless internet onto your t.v?

[minorcharacter]

Chromecast.  Anything I watch on my laptop can be streamed to the TV.  Very nice if you're just looking for a way to watch things on the big screen.  Sort of like wireless HDMI cord.

[hmg_mom]

I bought the basic Roku mainly for netflix but was a little disappointed no YouTube. However after waiting for almost 2yrs, roku finally updated with YouTube! But it's slow as heck! I only needed YouTube for my workout vids. Hahaha

So u should trying doing a search and see if urs have it now.

[tsabsuav]

Just bought Roku HDMI streaming stick from Best Buy this past week. Had some trouble getting Roku to connect online, but once it worked, it works flawlessly.  Youtube, Netflex works great with Roku.  Download their app and pair your smartphone for Youtube makes it so much easier to watch on the big screen.

[minorcharacter]

I don't own a Roku so I don't know exactly how it functions, but from what I am to understand you're limited by the capabilities offered only by Roku.  The Chromecast has an advantage in the fact that you can cast what's going on entirely on your google chrome browser tab.  It'll essentially function like a wireless HDMI cord.  I can stream whatever I want to my TV from my laptop.  The downside to that however is bandwidth.

[Sifu]

Roku3 player has some limitations and some benefits.  Besides being a streaming box it works pretty easily with little hassle.  Hundreds of free channels but maybe 5 of them are only worth keeping.  I bought it for my wife who likes Asian Dramas on CrunchyRoll and DramaFever.  It can stream from YouTube but at the time it had to jump through a few hoops as Google is strict on who can use YouTube.  It can be slow compared to other services but it's cheap.

I would have gotten a Chromecast if not for Plex.  If I must watch YouTube then there are my gaming consoles, roku, laptop, phone, ipads, etc.  With Plex I have setup my media server and can watch any of my movies from any internet source; browser or smartphone, tablet, etc.  Streams ripped blurays at good quality and was cheaper than Chromecast.  I can share my library so anyone else can watch my movies too.  Pretty cool to put all the kids movies and shows onto a media server where they can watch on their ipads from their grandparents place.  Saves bandwidth too.

[minorcharacter]

I've never heard of Plex before.  It sounds like a good deal to me.  I like to stream a lot of anime from different sites, can I do that without having to download it?

[Sifu]

Plex has some channels but I just rip everything I enjoy onto a media server and I never have to worry about scratch discs, misplaced discs, etc.  If you have a ton of movies you like to watch at anytime then Plex is awesome.  Its not so great if you only have a few things you like to watch but large libraries (I'm talking like terabytes of data) its been really nice.  My favorite anime series stored, ready to be viewed from anywhere in high def has been one of my favorite tech upgrades in the last 5 years. 

Its not for everyone but if you have a large collection and you still enjoy watching movies then it's worth it.  I paid $15 (3 licenses at $5 each) and I don't have to carry any hard drives along with me anymore.

[tsabsuav]

Its not for everyone but if you have a large collection and you still enjoy watching movies then it's worth it.  I paid $15 (3 licenses at $5 each) and I don't have to carry any hard drives along with me anymore.

I use Plex's free service to play MP3s and slideshow locally from my fileserver.  Just wondering, is the $15 a monthly fee or one time fee?  Also what's the storage capacity?

[Sifu]

Well I had to get it for my browser (free) but for both ipads they were $5 each so again in total it was $15.  My main account can share to a bunch of accounts; I'm not sure how many but
- roku (free app)
- ps3 (free app)
- 360 (free app)
- any browser with internet
- ipad/iphone (app purchase)
- windows phone (app purchase)

All those can access my movie files.  I can set limitations, add another user, etc.  It was $15 for the app purchases (or until they get big and jack up the price).  I have to admit that I did a beefy upgrade for a home network system ($300 hardware upgrades) that makes the experience much better but I can watch my favorite shows wherever I want from anywhere.  Besides Netflix it's one of my favorite little programs for video streaming.

Bandwidth is saved when I'm streaming from my own network.  Too good to be true when the rug rats want to watch Power Rangers for the billionth time because they can plex it from their device and it won't go towards your cap.  It takes many video formats but I rip everything into mp4 for compatibility everything and tagging.

The only problem is that ripping blu rays takes space and time but quality is important to me.  Finally, the space.  I catalog everything, tag and edit them.  Some blu rays ripped on my machine can take 1-4 hours just to rip; then encoding it can take another 8hours.  It won't always stream at 1980 but on a mobile 720 it still looks good.  Lastly it can bottle your network due to your UL speeds; the videos are stored on a hard drive and it has to access, encode and send. 

The storage is based off of your own storage.  You don't UL the movies to a plex location.  It pulls it from your own source.  I do not have monthly services; I dont like paying for cloud service.