Streaming vs. TV as second monitor?

General discussion about Universal Media Server (no support or requests)
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Sunwind
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Joined: Fri Mar 15, 2013 9:13 pm

Streaming vs. TV as second monitor?

Post by Sunwind »

Aside from the ease of use of being able to just run UMS and then play stuff from my TV, is there any difference than going through the hassle of extending my desktop to my TV and just playing whatever it is in VLC and maximizing that on the TV? will the quality be better? I remember comparing long ago when I used PS3MS but I didn't notice a difference (default quality settings in the program)
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SharkHunter
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Re: Streaming vs. TV as second monitor?

Post by SharkHunter »

I don't know. It is probably in the eye of the beholder.
If you do add an HTPC next to your PC (or a simple laptop would most likely do it these day) and run VLC and just output the stuff to your TV then that has more likely a "larger" functional set than any DLNA server can compete with.
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Sunwind
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Re: Streaming vs. TV as second monitor?

Post by Sunwind »

I see thanks for the response
Mifune
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Re: Streaming vs. TV as second monitor?

Post by Mifune »

The default ICC color profile in your PC/HTPC will not be beneficial when running directly to your TV. Considering if you already manually adjusted your TV's built in display settings, the default ICC monitor profile would likely negate it, resulting in undesirable color and contrast values that are way too high.

Ideally, you'd have to run a calibrated ICC profile based on your TV's current display settings to have the best picture.

There are quickly diminishing returns, the more TVs you want to have access media, using the direct HTPC -> TV method. DLNA devices (except for gaming consoles)/built in DLNA in a TV costs a lot less and use considerably less power than an HPTC, being the more economical option when you're dealing with more than 1 TV, IMO.
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squadjot
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Re: Streaming vs. TV as second monitor?

Post by squadjot »

There can be some perfomance benefits in using DLNA.

For an example my Atom Based server cannot playback HD files , or it can.. but the framerate is not fluent.
So instead i stream with UMS, and let my TV do the rendering.
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SubJunk
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Re: Streaming vs. TV as second monitor?

Post by SubJunk »

Yeah TVs and PS3s are better at maintaining smooth framerates than computers so it will be more stable. Plus we have features that will be useful like subtitle preferences so you can choose exactly which subtitle language you want when you are playing a certain audio language (instead of changing it for each file while they play in VLC), and right now I'm working on automatic virtual file renaming to make downloaded files easier to read without actually renaming them
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