Use Steam Remote Play On Your TV
Want to know how to play Steam games on a TV without additional hardware?
With a PC running Steam, you can cast PC games to a Smart TV or any device using Apple TV or Android TV.
Big name Smart TV manufacturers like Sony and Samsung offer Steam Link among the apps. If yours doesn’t, then you can use Apple TV or Android TV boxes instead.
Whichever method you use, start by following the steps above to configure Steam for streaming. Once this is done, install Steam Link on your Smart TV or on your Apple TV or Android TV box.
Steam Link for AppleTV | Android TV
You now know how to cast steam games and play them on a TV. With a game controller paired to your PC over Bluetooth, its time to enjoy yourself.
Related: How to Use the Steam Link App for Android
Casting Abs Optimized For Audio
Following the steps we set out above, you may have noticed that the sound is produced from the source device, of which the experience may not be as exciting. “Cast this tab ” solves that slight problem. The sound is mirrored to your output device giving you an even better quality.
The sound is controlled on your app/webpage/TV, your PC volume becomes useless. The mute button on your webpage is what you will need to mute your audio from your device, as shown above
“Cast entire screen” will help you mirror more than one tab or your entire desktop.
My Computer Doesn’t Have An Hdmi Port
HDMI connections come in three sizes: full-size , Mini and Micro. The HDMI port on either your computer or your TV is likely to be a full-size connection, shown in red in the image below. Not all computers feature HDMI, however.
If you have a recent model it may instead have a USB-C port, for which you simply need to use a USB-C to HDMI cable to connect it to the TV.
You can also purchase adaptors for converting your laptop’s USB-C, full-size USB 3.0, DVI and DisplayPort connections to HDMI, which might be easier if you already have a standard HDMI cable to hand.
If you go down the USB-C route but have only one USB-C port on your laptop, which is now occupied or required for charging, consider using a hub to add more ports – this model even adds an HDMI port.
If your laptop doesn’t have any of these modern connections, you’ll need to use a VGA port to connect it to the TV. As VGA cannot carry audio, you must choose a cable that also has a 3.5mm audio connector, such as this one.
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Just For Games: Steam Link
Valve released the Steam Link a few years ago, and while it didn’t make many waves, we were impressed by its performance. It was a media streamer designed specifically for PC games. You connected it to your TV, paired a controller with it, and you could play games on your computer through it. Your PC handled all of the graphical processing, and the Steam Link managed the audio/video and input data. It was surprisingly responsive if you had a very good wireless connection, or even better, could connect at least one of the two devices in the chain to your router over Ethernet.
The Steam Link as a device has been discontinued, but Valve has released apps that do the same job with software on a variety of devices. You can install Steam Link on Android TVs, Apple TVs, and Samsung TVs, or even on a Raspberry Pi if you want to build your own Steam Link box.
Steam Link is specifically designed for games, so you’re not going to be able to do much general media streaming or screen mirroring with it. In fact, since it depends on Steam’s Big Picture mode for an interface, you can’t actually access any content not directly available on Steam. It isn’t a solution if you just want to watch movies and TV shows . You can work through your PC’s desktop by minimizing Big Picture mode through Steam Link, but it’s an awkward, unreliable solution.
Pros: Low latency for PC gaming.
Cons: Not suitable for streaming non-PC game content.
Cast Photo Video Music From A Windows 10 Pc To TV Via File Explorer
Run the File Explorer which you use to browse and manage files and documents on your computer, find the video, music or picture file you like to play to TV, right click on the media file, you will get its context menu, select Play To from the context menu, your PC will then search for the compatible devices nearby, then choose your TV from the compatible devices list. Now go to watch the photo or video from your TV or listen to the music playing on your TV.
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How To Cast Your Desktop
To cast your desktop, select Cast desktop in the list of sources and then click the Chromecast you want to cast to.
When you attempt to cast your entire desktop, youll be prompted to choose exactly what you want to share on your desktop and whether you also want to share the audio.
While casting your screen, youll see a Chrome Media Router is sharing your screen . message at the bottom of your screen. Click Stop sharing to stop casting.
What Tab Casting Works Well For
Casting a Chrome browser tab is ideal for anything thats mostly static, such as vacation photos stashed in Dropbox, OneDrive, or . Its also good for viewing a website at a larger scale, or even for displaying a presentation PowerPoint online or Google Drives Presentation web app.
What it doesnt work as well for is video. Well, kind of. If you are using something that already supports casting, like YouTube, it works just fine because the Chromecast can grab YouTube directly from the internet, and your tab becomes a remote control for YouTube on the TV. In other words, it’s no longer broadcasting its tab to the Chromecast.
Non-Chromecast supporting content, like Vimeo and Amazon Prime Video, is a little more problematic. In this case, you’re streaming content directly from your browser tab to your television. To be honest, this doesnt work well. Its barely watchable, because you have to expect short stutters and skips as part of the bargain.
Its easy for Vimeo fans to fix this. Instead of casting from a PC tab, use the services mobile apps for Android and iOS, which do support Chromecast. Amazon Prime Video doesn’t currently support Chromecast, however, you can get Prime Video on your TV via other streaming devices like Amazons $40 Fire TV Stick or Roku.
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Stream From Pc To TV By Installing Plex Software On Your Pc
Pros: Plex software organizes media on a PC or NAS, making it a media server accessible to any device on your network.Cons: Quality of stream is subject to wireless network performance.
Setup overview: Install Plex software on the computer that contains the files you wish to stream. The software setup wizard helps organize media files on the server, and you install the mobile application on devices where you want to view the contenthere is where a Wi-Fi-enabled smart TV is useful, but there are workarounds if you dont have one. Keep reading.
Screen shot of Plex apps front end
Limitations: For non-smart televisions to network with a Plex server, any media streamer will do the trick Roku 3, Roku 4, Chromecast, Apple TV, current gaming consolesall of them have Plex support. These devices connect to the TV via HDMI, and a router via wired Ethernet.
Pro tip: You actually do not need additional software to stream from PC to TVWindows, OSX and Linux operating systems have built-in DLNA server features. Since DLNA is a dated standard, not every kind of media file will be recognized by the server. Plex is capable of transcoding on the fly to accommodate streaming these otherwise unsupported file formats.
Plex alternatives: There is PlayOn for Roku TiVo users have TiVo Desktop Software for PC. If you have another favorite Plex alternative, call it out in the comments.
How Do I Cast Windows On My Pc
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Make Sure Casting Is Enabled On Your TV
Cast Media Files From Mobile Phones To TV Big Screen
You can also cast or stream photos, videos and music from a smartphone to TV. For example, iPhone iPad iPod touch users can make use of AirPlay to cast media files from iOS devices to TV. Samsung Galaxy mobile phone users, Samsung Note and tablets users can enable the Screen Mirroring feature to cast Samsung mobile on TV screen which will mirror your mobile devices content to your TV screen.
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Cast A Pc Game To TV Via Chromecast
If your PC and Google Chromecast are connected to the same network, you can cast your desktop to your TV. Whatever is running on your computer including games can be cast to the TV.
For this to work you need to be using the Google Chrome browser on the computer in question. This should be signed into using the same account attached to the Chromecast device. To do this:
The benefit of this method is that it works on any system that runs Google Chrome. However, it is not without its flaws.
As effortless as this method is for casting games from a computer to your TV, the lag is terrible. Even casting a mouse driven strategy game on a 5GHz wireless network to a Chromecast Ultra connected to Ethernet results in a notable lag.
In short, Chromecast is fine for spectators, but less effective for gamers.
Related: Build Your Own Chromecast With a Raspberry Pi
Connect Using Chromecast Or Chromecast Built
If you have a Chromecast device connected to your TV or your TV has Chromecast built-in, you can use the Chrome browser on your computer to cast Netflix to your TV.
On your computer, open the Chrome browser .
Sign In to netflix.com.
in the upper or lower right corner of the browser.
Select the Cast icon from the upper or lower right side of the screen.
Select your computer from the list of available devices to cast Netflix to your TV.
Select a TV show or movie to watch and press Play. You can control the playback from your computer.
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Why Use Your TV As A Second Screen
If you’re working from home, the biggest benefit to connecting your computer to your TV is being able to use it as a second monitor. TVs are bigger screens and generally farther away from your face than monitors, but you can easily toss a few Chrome tabs with Slack, your email client, and any useful information or messaging services up there so you can see if you need to respond to anything at a glance. Keep in mind a second-screen system only works with a few of the methods listed below, though.
This can be a big advantage for students, too. A large screen offers a bigger, clearer view of presentations and speakers, and allows for easier collaboration if a number of students are attending remote classes at once. If a laptop or tablet screen doesn’t seem like it’ll be big enough for schoolwork, a TV will do the job.
All of these methods let you stream media to your TV, so if you have lots of videos on your hard drive or only visible through a web app you can send them to your TV. You can also use Plex to simply share your entire local media library, along with a slew of online services, directly to your TV with a simple menu interface.
You can even game this way. An HDMI cable is the best way to do this locally, but Steam Link has proven surprisingly capable of streaming locally networked gaming from your PC to your TV.
How To Cast Media From Windows 10 Pc To Your Smart TV
Lets face it, nobody wants to watch 1080p Full HD video on the 15.6 laptop screen when they have their 49 smart TV screen right in front of them. And when your buddies come over, you obviously want to cast those pics or movies to the big screen for everyones enjoyment.
If you have a Smart TV with WiFi capabilities, casting media from your Windows 10 laptop or PC is easier than you think. But if your TV doesnt WiFi support, you can still use the good-old HDMI cable to connect your TV to your Laptop of course.
If you are sure your TV has WiFi connectivity and Miracast by extension, then you are all set. All you have to do is make sure that your laptop and Smart TV are on the same wireless network. Theres are two ways of casting media to your TV you could cast your whole laptop to the TV.
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Install Streaming Software On Your Smart TV
The Nvidia GeForce Experience software comes bundled in with streaming capabilities, known as Nvidia GameStream. This was designed so people could stream games from their PC to other hardware sold by Nvidia the Nvidia Shield tablet, or Shield TV set top box unit but it can also be used with third party applications, so youre not locked into Nvidias hardware ecosystem.
Youre going to need to onto your smart TV. It used to be called Limelight so they changed the name. If you have Limelight installed youll want to upgrade it, because the new versions are drastically improved.
If youve not downloaded an app onto your smart TV before it can be a little fiddly. Youve probably never bothered to sign in with a Google Play account on your telly, but once youre done inputting your username and password with a remote control then the process is easy enough.
Its worth pointing out that you dont have to stream PC games to your Android smart TV. You can in fact , including Android mobile phones and tablets, Windows PCs and laptops, Apple iOS devices and more. If youve got a tablet hanging around Moonlight gives you the ability to create a ghetto Nvidia Shield with no extra hardware cost, which is pretty great too, but everything looks better on a massive telly.
How To Cast A Windows 10 Desktop To A Smart TV
1. Depending on the type of TV remote you have, press the “Home” or “Input” button.
2. Using the remote, select “Screen mirroring” or “Project” depending on which kind of casting you wish to do. You may need to select “Apps” first, depending on your TV model.
3. On your computer, go to the settings menu, and select “Devices.”
4. Underneath “Bluetooth & other devices,” click on “Add Bluetooth or other device.”
4. Click “Wireless display or dock.”
5. In the menu that appears, click on your smart TV to begin casting.
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Adding A Powerdvd Channel To Roku
If you have a Roku casting device, you can stream PowerDVD media to your TV using the above steps. However, before you can stream via Roku, you must first add the PowerDVD channel to your Roku interface.
To add PowerDVD to Roku, select the file you want to play in PowerDVD and select Roku from the Play To menu. If you are streaming to Roku for the first time, a notification popup will appear in PowerDVD, asking you if you want to add a PowerDVD channel to Roku.
Click on Install to open the Roku interface on your TV. Then, click on Add Channel using your Roku remote to add the PowerDVD channel to your Roku menu.
Advanced Tips And Tricks
Display resolution and target frames per second
Moonlight can automatically detect what it thinks are the best streaming settings, but it generally skews towards the extreme of frame rate performance, often to the detriment of resolution and detail levels. 720p, all settings on low? May as well be playing on a console.
You can specify in the advanced options of Moonlight what target resolution and frames per second youd like it to run at. This can be a bit of trial and error to get right, but you can get some really good results.
Network performance
Try and keep network traffic to a minimum. If your mobile phone is set to auto update apps while on your home wireless, maybe think about stopping it from doing so while youre trying to stream PC games to your smart TV. Anything else hogging the bandwidth on the network can have an impact on streaming performance, which is very latency-sensitive.
Steam Big Picture mode
You can select which games youd like to stream to your PC by adding their executable files to the GameStream tab in the GeForce Experience app. If youd rather launch Steam, then simply add its executable to the list. If youd like to run Steam in the living room-friendly Big Picture mode then create a shortcut to the Steam executable with the -bigpicture switch on the end, and add that shortcut into the available GameStream games. Youll then be able to launch all your games from Steams controller-friendly interface.
Individual games
Mouse and keyboard
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