tiggerella
Apr 3, 2014, 08:01 AM
Due to the cost vs what we have delivered to our home, we're getting rid of our cable television and internet service after several years of "technical difficulties" while they keep raising the cost without fixing the problems we've been having.
We're getting DSL for the internet - which, before you jump on that "it's slower than death on a cracker" bandwagon, so is my cable internet because of where I live, but it's $20 for the DSL vs $51 for the cable each month. If it's going to be slow and cut out, I feel better that I'm not spending the extra $31 for the service that they never intend to have "lightning fast" in my area, as that would mean restringing the cable lines every couple of years from snow damage. (The cable company keeps trying to blame my WiFi hookup for the slow internet, but we also have the television cut out right in the middle of a show, freezing, pixilating, going totally black for several seconds, etc. - which ISN'T the WiFi and they can't seem to get that corrected, either... )
I've just installed Rabbit TV on my laptop to allow my husband to watch the sports he wants to watch, but he just went out and got his long-awaited big screen HD television and wants to watch the games on the big screen - not my dinky little laptop screen. I'm getting conflicting information from techies at Radio Shack, Best Buy and Staples as to what I need to hook up in order to simply use my laptop as the source for the streaming transmission, so I'm going to throw this up there for the techies here to either battle out - or more fully explain for me so that I know what I need to pick up in order to make this happen.
According to Radio Shack, the laptop can't simply be hooked up to an HDMI cable, even with an adapter that will hook into either a USB port or the 15 pin VGA, without a box between to translate the information. It's a very expensive piece of equipment they're telling me I need, thus why I'm seeking other opinions before spending a full paycheck on something I may not need.
According to several things I've read online and in the owner's manuals for both the laptop and the television, I just need the cable, but depending on who I speak with at Best Buy or Staples, there's a big debate as to whether it needs to be a VGA to HDMI converter cable or a USB to HDMI converter. A couple of the techies at each place suggest the box that Radio Shack is insisting I need, as it would give a better picture, but for the most part, I'm being told "You don't need THIS, you need THAT" - and because there are so many options, it's getting confusing...
Adding to this is the ever-present WiFi, as the television manual says that it can be connected to WiFi, which would allow me to just stream the Rabbit TV directly to the television, but there are no instructions on how to set such a thing up.
The laptop I'm referring to is a Dell Inspiron 1545, which has three USB ports, a 15 pin VGA and the plug in that looks almost like a phone line, but is for the bigger cable connection tab. The television is a Vizio HD Model E420i-AO with 3 HDMI connections, a USB port, an internet port, and several versions of the multi-tip cable connectors (so that you can hook up anywhere from a two-prong line to a 5 prong line from Point A to Point B.)
The cable will be shut off as of April 11, 2014 and the DSL will be turned on the same day, so it's just a matter of how to get the streaming video option going for my husband before baseball season hits so that he can catch the games. Majority will no doubt rule here - unless you have an extremely good argument as to why YOUR suggestion is better than the others...
So... GO!
We're getting DSL for the internet - which, before you jump on that "it's slower than death on a cracker" bandwagon, so is my cable internet because of where I live, but it's $20 for the DSL vs $51 for the cable each month. If it's going to be slow and cut out, I feel better that I'm not spending the extra $31 for the service that they never intend to have "lightning fast" in my area, as that would mean restringing the cable lines every couple of years from snow damage. (The cable company keeps trying to blame my WiFi hookup for the slow internet, but we also have the television cut out right in the middle of a show, freezing, pixilating, going totally black for several seconds, etc. - which ISN'T the WiFi and they can't seem to get that corrected, either... )
I've just installed Rabbit TV on my laptop to allow my husband to watch the sports he wants to watch, but he just went out and got his long-awaited big screen HD television and wants to watch the games on the big screen - not my dinky little laptop screen. I'm getting conflicting information from techies at Radio Shack, Best Buy and Staples as to what I need to hook up in order to simply use my laptop as the source for the streaming transmission, so I'm going to throw this up there for the techies here to either battle out - or more fully explain for me so that I know what I need to pick up in order to make this happen.
According to Radio Shack, the laptop can't simply be hooked up to an HDMI cable, even with an adapter that will hook into either a USB port or the 15 pin VGA, without a box between to translate the information. It's a very expensive piece of equipment they're telling me I need, thus why I'm seeking other opinions before spending a full paycheck on something I may not need.
According to several things I've read online and in the owner's manuals for both the laptop and the television, I just need the cable, but depending on who I speak with at Best Buy or Staples, there's a big debate as to whether it needs to be a VGA to HDMI converter cable or a USB to HDMI converter. A couple of the techies at each place suggest the box that Radio Shack is insisting I need, as it would give a better picture, but for the most part, I'm being told "You don't need THIS, you need THAT" - and because there are so many options, it's getting confusing...
Adding to this is the ever-present WiFi, as the television manual says that it can be connected to WiFi, which would allow me to just stream the Rabbit TV directly to the television, but there are no instructions on how to set such a thing up.
The laptop I'm referring to is a Dell Inspiron 1545, which has three USB ports, a 15 pin VGA and the plug in that looks almost like a phone line, but is for the bigger cable connection tab. The television is a Vizio HD Model E420i-AO with 3 HDMI connections, a USB port, an internet port, and several versions of the multi-tip cable connectors (so that you can hook up anywhere from a two-prong line to a 5 prong line from Point A to Point B.)
The cable will be shut off as of April 11, 2014 and the DSL will be turned on the same day, so it's just a matter of how to get the streaming video option going for my husband before baseball season hits so that he can catch the games. Majority will no doubt rule here - unless you have an extremely good argument as to why YOUR suggestion is better than the others...
So... GO!