Being a Nerd: Wireless VGA/HDMI Part 2
Q: (from Jeff)
When you find a minute if I could trouble you to send me links to the HDMI connector for surface pro, as well as the device that allows you to connect to your television for both video and audio.
A:
This is a follow up question from my original post Being a Nerd: Wireless VGA/HDMI. In that blog post, I focused on getting my Surface RT and Samsung 7 Micro HDMI devices connected to a projector and started to explore the concept of wireless video projection. The proposed solution using a Warpia adapter worked by redirecting the laptop/tablet video signal through the USB port and then used the Wireless USB standard to broadcast the signal to a receiver that decoded the signal into VGA or HDMI. It worked, but was somewhat kludgie, required an external USB adapter added to the host computer, and only worked with Windows 8 and not Windows RT.
Since then, I’ve started using more devices based on Mini DisplayPort like the Surface Pro and the Lenovo Carbon Touch.
If you want to do this with a cable, you are looking for a Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter. Here is the official one from the Microsoft Store:
But I wanted something that was longer and gave me a little more freedom to walk and talk. I could have just gotten an HDIM extension cable, but that’s one more connection to weigh me down and to come loose in the middle of a presentation. So I went to my local nerd store (MicroCenter) and got a MUCH longer Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter:
https://www.microcenter.com/product/411144/10ft_Mini_DisplayPort_to_HDMI_Cable
With the release of Windows 8.1, Microsoft’s leading OS now supports Miracast (called WiDi by Intel). The idea behind Miracast is to redirect the video signal over the WiFi adapter built into most portable devices. This means the broadcast side doesn’t need any additional hardware. And, if you are lucky enough to have a TV or projector with a Miracast receiver, you’re ready to go! But in the real world, you will need an adapter for most legacy display devices. I went with the Netgear Push2TV adapter, which, once I updated the firmware and my device drivers worked on the very first try. Here is an extensive WindowsIT Pro blog post that details the steps you should take: https://windowsitpro.com/microsoft-surface/getting-it-work-miracast-windows-81-and-plain-old-surface-pro-version-1.
This still has some limitations. First, it only works for PCs; to date, I haven’t found a wireless video solution for my Windows RT devices. Second, it only supports HDMI; I’ve been unsuccessful at getting the solution to wirelessly connect me to a VGA projector. But I’ll keep looking for solutions to both of these challenges and will post a Part 3 when I find more.
Steve