How To Watch Your Downloaded Shows And Movies From Your Laptop/Computer On Your (Old) TV

So you have an old, prehistoric TV and you want to stream the movies from your laptop or computer to your TV.

Possible? Yup and here’s how!

Say ‘hi’ to my dinosaur of a TV that I decided to bring with me to our new condo!

Step 1: First, make sure you have a Wi-Fi Network. This will not work, if you do not have a Wi-Fi Network at home. (I know Wi-Fi at home is a norm, but just making sure!)

Step 2: Get yourself a media player.

There are a lot of media players out there. The husband always recommends the Popcorn Hour Media Player to friends. It’s basically a tiny computer that’s just made for playing media (songs, 1080P videos, etc.) The best part is, you can directly download your torrents into it’s internal HDD (HDD is bought separately).

(I’m not quite sure, though, if the Popcorn Hour Media Player is compatible with old TVs. For the more hard core tech geeks, you can build your own media player.)

If you already have a PS3 hooked to your TV, you can use that as a media player, too!

Personally, I recommend the WDTV Live. It’s a very basic media player that’s really easy to use. If you’re not too particular about ‘features’ and all you want to do is watch the movies and shows saved on your laptop, on your TV, then this is the way to go 🙂 PLUS, it works on old CRT TVs!

WDTV Live. I bought this for P4,990.00

There are other models of the WD TV Live that comes with a built-in HDD, but this is the most basic one. Can read from a USB, or external HDD, too.

Comes with a remote. Very easy to operate!

Step 3: Download and install the ‘PS3 Media Server’ on your computer. (There are other Media Server apps out there, but I like this one as it is the most simple and least complicated to use.)


The PS3 Media Server is simply an application or software that will allow the media player (or your PS3) access to your computer or laptop via WiFi. Works for both Macs and PCs.

Step 4: Set up your media player and start watching!

Easy to set-up! Plug in the AV cables (or HDMI, but the you’ll have to buy the HDMI cables separately)

The first time you turn the WDTV Live on, you’ll be asked to update it. It’ll take around 30 minutes, depending on your connection.

Once everything is up-to date, choose the ‘Content Source’, in this case it’s ‘Media Server’

You should see all the servers, choose the PS3 Media Server [ ]

Then, you’ll see the ‘Shared Folders’. You can set this in the PS3 Media Server application. (Navigation/Share Settings)

And viola! Your shows and movies on your TV! ❤

So there you go! Enjoy your movie nights at home!

Lia
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4 responses to “How To Watch Your Downloaded Shows And Movies From Your Laptop/Computer On Your (Old) TV”

  1. Irene Enriquez Avatar
    Irene Enriquez

    Cool! I’ve always thought you can’t stream videos to the Jurassic tv’s.hehe We actually use our PS3 to stream content to the TV, but we use HDMI. Sometimes we use the USB port that comes with the TV, but it’s picky when it comes to file format. 🙂

  2. Lia Espina Lopez Avatar
    Lia Espina Lopez

    We used to use the PS3 to stream videos on our TV in the living room, too! 😀

  3. Calvin Avatar
    Calvin

    that’s the one with the built-in wifi right? mine requires a dongle so i just used the LAN cable connected to my router but i’m looking for another one para sa secondary tv.

    i noticed pala pag mag stream ka ng videos, better have a wireless n router. tried it on an old wireless g router and nahihirapan sya. pero the best pa rin is connect a flash drive, hard disk sa media player instead of stream over network.

  4. Lia Espina Lopez Avatar
    Lia Espina Lopez

    Calvin, yup, it has WiFi so no need for cables. Connects to your WiFi network 🙂

    Ooh, thanks for the observation. Our router is a wireless N so I don’t have any issues naman with the streaming, thought sometimes nga sa mga hi-res 1080P na movies, it chops.

    Tamad ako mag transfer-transfer the files eh! Haha.

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