How to Stream Video to a TV from a Phone
If you’d like to know how to stream content on your computer or mobile device to your TV, read on for a variety of options.
Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Video may be the easiest ways to stream content, but they may not have exactly what you want to watch. If you’ve spent the past few years building up your own collection of digital content, you can watch whatever you want, but getting it onto your big-screen TV isn’t always the most straightforward process.
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If you’d like to know how to stream content from your laptop, desktop, phone or tablet to your TV, read on for a variety of options.
Two Main Methods
Generally speaking, there are two convenient ways to get content from your computer or mobile device to your TV: screen mirroring and media servers. (You could also just take the path of least resistance and hook up your device to your TV via HDMI, but you don’t need a how-to guide for that.)
Screen mirroring is exactly what it sounds like: Whatever’s on your computer or mobile screen appears on your TV screen wirelessly. The benefits of this approach are obvious, but it’s not as foolproof as it may sound. Not all screen-mirroring protocols are created equal, and you’ll need a pretty stellar Wi-Fi connection to watch with perfect fidelity.
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Media servers are the more traditional, more reliable and more involved solution. By running software on your computer or mobile device, you can effectively make it into a remote server. Then, you can broadcast content to your TV easily and with no loss of quality, as long as you’re on the same network. Setting them up takes some legwork, though.