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Teachers have long sought an easy-to-use and affordable wireless display technology that can free them from the bondage of long cables running from computers to projectors and HDTVs. I think I may have finally cracked it.

WiDi, Airplay, Miracast, DIAL, and DLNA are just a few of the wireless display standards currently making up the alphabet soup of wireless display technologies. It can all get very confusing and these standards are still evolving. To make matters worse some solutions are proprietary causing vendor lock-in and duplication among vendors. Many solutions require buying the “right” device and connecting it to the “right” app to display your screen wirelessly to the front of the room. We need a universal standard so that all these devices can get along with each other. There may be hope as this fall many HDTV manufacturers are building in miracast and DIAL capability into many new models. Until that happens I have found a workable and affordable solution for wirelessly connecting a Dell XPS 13 Laptop to a 50 inch HDTV.

To be fair I was able to do this 3 or 4 years ago using some WiDi equipment but at that time it would only work well with static images like PowerPoint slides, wirelessly displaying video was too demanding at that time. In addition you had to have the “right” combination of processor and wireless chips to get everything to work properly. We are getting closer to more broadly available wireless standard but we still have a ways to go.

I recently purchased the Actiontec ScreenBeam device that connects to any HDMI-capable HDTV that can mirror your PC’s display to the big screen. It is advertised to work with Windows 7 and Windows 8 computers but in my experience you will need a fast processor for it to work well. 

This is how it works for me as I have this working on a Dell XPS 13 laptop that is about one-year old and has a 128 GB SSD hard drive. This device requires an HDMI input on the projector or HDTV you are connecting to.

First, there is software that must be loaded on the PC/Laptop. Once the software is installed on your PC/Laptop you next connect the ScreenBeam receiver unit into an open HDMI port on the HDTV (there is also a small power-brick that you must plug-in so that the receiver unit has power) you then select the correct HDMI port to display on the HDTV. Once the receiver unit is connected and you are on the correct HDMI input you will see the ScreenBeam instructions displayed on the HDTV screen waiting to be paired to your PC/Laptop.

On the PC/Laptop side of the equation you insert the ScreenBeam USB transmitter into an open USB port on your PC/Laptop and wait for it to be recognized by your computer. Once recognized, double-click on the ScreenBeam software shortcut that is on the Desktop. The ScreenBeam software will open and scan the area for a receiver to connect to (the range is about 30 feet). The first time you use it you will need to follow the on-screen instructions and enter a security code to match the transmitter to the receiver. We don’t want to have any rouge PC’s connecting to your big screen display ;)

The pairing process works similar to the familiar Bluetooth pairing except this time we are paring video to the HDTV wirelessly. Using the ScreenBeam software you select the receiver (it is identified by a unique number) and then click on Connect.

In my experience the pairing process takes less than a minute and once connected you are “mirroring” your computer display on the big screen! What you see and do on the PC/Laptop is displayed on the big screen in real time. There is very little lag (even with YouTube videos) and I have been impressed so far with the performance using the Dell XPS 13 Laptop. The video streaming is of high-quality and the sound is great. Unlike some other solutions this method does not require an 802.11 type network so you do not have to worry about bogging down bandwidth for other network users.

Because of the variety of Intel and AMD chip-sets available on PC’s and laptops I do not know what chip-sets will provide acceptable performance. I did try ScreenBeam on my Clover Trail Windows 8 Tablet and the new ATOM processor struggled to keep up with delivering the video to the HDTV. It worked but was slow and choppy (unacceptable). I have not had time to try older processors like the Intel Dual Core series but my Dell XPS has a Core i5 and it is working smoothly. I am not sure if AMD chips are even supported.

Finally, for those of you reading this that may have the new Microsoft Surface Pro, my big question is will this work on the Surface Pro?  

If this will work with Surface Pro then teachers will be thrilled because we would finally have an enterprise class machine with digital Pen input that can be used with OneNote to essentially become a roaming wireless interactive white board for classroom presentations.  In addition, you could display any of the millions of x86 applications available on Windows to the big screen.

I am very interested if this would work on the new Surface Pro. If you have a Surface Pro and are able to test the Actiontec ScreenBeam wireless display adapter please let me know your experiences so we can share with others. You can email me at techtalk@eiu.edu

Keep on Learning,

Tom Grissom, Ph.D.

Follow me on Twitter @tomgrissom

Update 2/13/2013:  I also have this working on a five year old Dell Core 2 Duo desktop computer (it does not have a wireless card in it, just a regular ethernet card). It is working with Windows 7 display (1280x720) mirrored to the HDTV with sound. #winning 

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