A promising new piece of software beams your computer to the big screen in seconds, no cables necessary
Posted 01.09.2009 at 11:26 am
2 Comments
DisplayShare
Courtesy Golden Signals
Someday soon there'll be a chicken in every pot and a centralized media center in every home. Till then, we're stuck with what we've got; some companies are rising to the challenge. Golden Signals, which debuted DisplayShare this week, is one of the more innovative: its wireless TV-computer linkup utilizes your existing gaming console and router.
Install the $50 software and your computer begins creating a realtime video of every action occurring on the desktop. By simultaneously commanding the console (currently only Playstation 3, but a version that works with the Wii and Xbox 360 is expected by summer) to stream the video on TV, DisplayShare allows you to view anything you'd see on your computer on the big screen.
The system works by tapping into your existing network protocol so there are few distance limitations. If you have a powerful router your laptop could be anywhere in the house. With a lesser one, you can still probably park it about 50 feet away, according to Stuart Golden, President and CEO of the startup. What this spells for the user is a seamless way to free up media. Hulu becomes a (even more) viable alternative to cable. Pandora gets easier. YouTube is liberated. It won't work with Blu-ray for copy protection reasons, but that seems a scant constraint. A simple, clever system that, at least in demo form works exactly as promised. Now if you'll pardon me, I have to return to the floor to search out a poultry-pot workaround.
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Can you record videos of pc games with this? or just the desktop? or will it hurt the performance of the pc having a game and this running at the same time?
While this is an excellent idea, after a quick use of the free trial I found the service impractical for watching streaming video. Now I don't have the best internet connection, nor the best router (Belkin wireless N), but I'm only about 10 feet from the router and my PS3 is wired to it directly. I suppose it might be significant to note that my laptop's wireless adapter is only a wireless-g, you might get better results with a wireless-n adapter.
In using Display Share to watch an episode of "Family Guy" on Hulu, and a couple random videos from Youtube, I experienced consistent lag which made videos unwatchable. Additionally, when the video from Display Share lagged too far behind, it would skip ahead forwarding through parts of the video to catch up, that is completely unacceptable when trying to watch a video.
Also the options available for the software are very limited. The only available options are to turn off the picture or audio independently, or to adjust the aspect ratio.
An excellent idea in theory, but didn't work so well in practice. At least for me.
One good side, the software was very easy to start using. Just open the program, turn on the PS3, and it should immediately recognize Display Share as a media server.