I have a TV in my shop, like a lot of people, and love to have videos playing in the background. I upgraded to unlimited over the holidays hoping to have plenty to watch but there isn’t an easy way to play it on the TV. Some websites allow you to download them so I can throw them on the plex server. Does anyone have any options?
I decided to ask the question after hearing Ben Strano talk about playing video in his shop so I thought I would ask it here.
Replies
If your TV and your phone support it, you can screen cast from your phone to your TV. This takes pretty new equipment, but it works.
I have done that with my apple tv and my phone and mac. The main issue I have with that is it doesn't go to the next video when it ends. I have to interact with the device to go to the next segment. I do appreciate the reply but I am looking for something a little different.
Must have been someone else watching videos in their shop! I don't have a heat much less a TV! Unfortunately, we can't make the videos downloadable. The vast majority of them are for members only, and that would lead to rampant piracy.
I agree about the issue of having to hit the next episode. It is one thing we hear often. When we redesigned the site we had to let that feature go for a plethora of reasons. It is something we do bring up often though.
I guess I am not one of the "lot of people". I consider TV a distraction and do not recommend watching TV in the shop ;-) That being said I do have an old PC in the shop that I use to stream music.
It could be argued that music is a distraction but, I don't have to 'look' at it so that's may argument. The point being if I need to look at video, plans, an article or whatever I do it online not via "TV".
Enough rambling; the answer to your problem is a PC and a FWW online account at this point in history.
Ben, I apparently heard it wrong or just heard what I wanted to hear. Thank you for the reply.
I did come up with the best solution with the least amount of interaction. I have an apple tv and I can airplay the video from my iPhone or iPad. It works great and it pretty easy to switch videos. I would like to make another suggestion since playlists are in the near future. It would be so much easier if all of the videos could be played from one page it would speed things up.
Yep that would be my answer, the AppleTV and my phone.
That said, I echo GeeDub's comment; I play music on a Bluetooth speaker; no TV in my shop. I have to watch what I'm doing. Then again, if you're just hanging out in your man cave, it's always nice to be able to watch a game.
Another option would be to have a tablet like an iPad and watch videos on that. You could set one up where it's fairly prominent. That's more $$ than a TV though, but it's an all-in-one solution.
Check out Chromecast (use Chrome as your phone browser and "Cast" to the tv) or connect an HDMI cable to a laptop.
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