Wireless display - ready for prime time?

[HCHTech]

I'm preparing a quote for a new customer which includes a large-screen smartTV for their conference room. They want to have an easy-to-use connection for powerpoint & videos during staff meetings and sales presentations.

I'm wondering if instead of just making an HDMI wall-plate available near the conference table, I should look into a wireless video connection. i've never done this personally, so I don't know how well the various hardware out there would work. I don't want to suggest something that will be troublesome.

There would be random users - travelling vendor representatives mostly, so the laptop generating the content would likely be different every time.

Has anyone setup something like this that has proven robust in practice? Care to share what hardware you used?

 

[Sky-Knight]

High definition video needs bandwidth, bandwidth is the antithesis of wireless. I've yet to see any video sending unit work as advertised, and the more pixels you shove through it the worse it gets.

HDMI cables work the first time every time.

So do you want high tech and convenient, or stable?

If you go the cable route, make sure you have the cable terminate into a gender changer in a harness on the table... you'll want to be able to replace that bit without pulling a new wire.

 

[Sky-Knight]

I find most people that don't have HDMI output have adapters themselves for it. But if you're going down that road of providing them you may consider some display port to hdmi adapters too.

I just suggest you have a female end on that HDMI cable in the wall. That connection is going to see a ton of use, and it's far cheaper to replace the female to female adapter in the box than it is the cable in the wall. Also, manually terminating HDMI is a chore and a half... no thanks!

 

[cprompt]

As a public school teacher, I have used a couple of wireless displays over the last few years. It started at one high school where we used Apply TV and I had an iPad mini. I absolutely loved the freedom it gave me to move around during class and not being stuck to the board. We had some hiccups, but overall it worked well.

In my current district, they have installed Wireless ScreenBeam adapters on all their projectors at the high school, and I have one on a projector on a portable cart. My Surface Pro generally works seamlessly with it, and I also use it for presentations to staff or to parents (next week we have a couple of Math Nights that I'm doing a presentation at). Again, I LOVE the flexibility to move around during my presentation.

With that said, I agree wholeheartedly with having the wired option available so that you can address pretty much anyone who comes in. Don't be surprised if someone comes in with their own portable adapter to hook up to your projector.

Brian.

 

[NviGate Systems]

I carry VGA to HDMI as well, never know when you need them. Plus it has USB for Power & Audio.

 

[HCHTech]

Thanks, everyone - good advice. We're going to do cable - no reason not to considering the variability of the computers that will be using the system. If it was just one computer under the company's control, then absolutely we could setup a system. Asking every salesman that comes through the door to configure their stuff to work with our system is unreasonable and will no doubt end badly. This is a one-story building on a slab, so concrete floors under the carpet. I think we'll just put a female HDMI jack in a wall plate as the end point - I like the idea of making it so that part is replaceable without running new cable - awesome advice.

This is part of a much larger project for us - new server, firewall, switches,12 new workstations, printers, the works - exciting for my little business.