I have a colleague who is completely determined to try to find a way to display the visual output from his tablet to the LCD projector in his lab. Unfortunately, the "easy way" is not an option since the projector doesn't have built-in wireless networking capability. I had suggested an add-on module from the manufacturer (Epson), but the projector is apparently lacking the hardware to be able to use the module as well. I had hoped that it could connect with only the wireless module via USB, but it won't. The projector is currently connected via above-ceiling VGA to a fixed PC in the lab, so there's not much chance of anything being moved around. Is it possible to get the tablet to communicate wirelessly with the PC (once it has a wireless network card installed...) and then have the PC act as the passthrough to the projector? I am not familiar with the hardware or applications which might help to accomplish this. Any suggestions, please? This would be so easy if only the projector had wireless capability.

10/11/2013 12:00:49 PM

where the cable goes into the computer, just add a VGA (or HDMI, whatever it is) selector and run a new cable to the conference table or wherever he would be with the tablet

10/11/2013 12:12:16 PM

If it's an iOS tablet, Apple TV with Airplay is the most reliable way to go wireless. If you want to use the computer as the server, use AirServer (http://www.airserver.com/)

I'm not quite as familiar with Android devices, but I'm sure there is something similar available.

10/11/2013 1:55:05 PM

(yeah, disregard my post. We all use Windows 8 tablets so they just have a mini-hdmi cable that we use in conference rooms)

10/11/2013 1:57:11 PM

if it's a nicer android tablet you could possibly get an mhl cable and connect it to the vga if you can connect via cable. if the content he wants to mirror is viewable in a browser and he's running android, chrome + chromecast should work

10/11/2013 4:00:17 PM

After further conversation, there's another whole level of complexity. He wants to do this wirelessly. Ugh. And there are two tablets: one Android, and one Windows 8 Surface RT.

I appreciate all of the feedback so far. I just don't yet see how I can make this work wirelessly.

10/11/2013 11:31:36 PM

the surface RT doesn't support WIDI or miracast so I'm not sure how you would do anything wireless directly from the tablet. There should be RDP apps for RT so you could remotely control the desktop that is hooked up to the projector but I'm not sure if that is good enough for them.

10/12/2013 2:17:14 PM

If the surface is the x86 based one, just use airparrot and an appletv.

There are airplay apps for android too, but you might have to root the android tablet.

Otherwise, depending on what content you're trying to show, the android is likely to be a pita to stream.

10/12/2013 10:39:35 PM

the RT is not x86

10/12/2013 11:19:00 PM

Well then this is probably more trouble than it's worth.

Just buy some iPads and an Appletv.

10/13/2013 12:10:55 PM

Probably a jimmyrigged and laggy way of doing it but he's determined...if the PC has internet, use a/your gotomeeting account and share screen? Android has the app in their store and I would assume the Surface has a generic enough browser to support Citrix.

10/13/2013 1:20:26 PM

You need to let us know what kind of content he wants to share. Chromecast or remotely controlling the desktop like others have suggested is one way to share the content, but it works for content that can be shown in a browser and requires some prepping of the PC and/or the content. Some methods (like Citrix) may be good for sharing static pages such as presentations or photos, but will not work for videos or animation.

Also need to know whether the computer is Windows or Mac (a legitimate question these days).

It's like people that come to the Garage and say, I have a car with four wheels and a trailer with two wheels, can I tow the trailer with my car?

10/13/2013 1:51:23 PM

just give everyone in the room a set of binoculars

10/13/2013 4:05:42 PM

For the RT tablet you can buy the vga adapter, plug it in and it will work.

10/13/2013 9:19:32 PM

Quote :

"Well then this is probably more trouble than it's worth. Just buy some iPads and an Appletv."

You have no idea how true this statement is. However, there's no money in the budget to do this. We've already got more Android-based tablets than I was aware, and the next batch will be Surface RT's. So unfortunately, the money is already gone. Having the ability to connect the tablets to the projector wirelessly was a complete afterthought.

The PC's in the lab which are already connected to the projectors via VGA cable are all Windows 7 32-bit.

Quote :

"Probably a jimmyrigged and laggy way of doing it but he's determined...if the PC has internet, use a/your gotomeeting account and share screen? Android has the app in their store and I would assume the Surface has a generic enough browser to support Citrix."

This is a very interesting idea. The problem is that I have no idea what kind of apps this person would want to be able to show from the tablet onto the projector. Connecting via RDP (if I'm understanding correctly) would pretty much be the same thing as sitting at the computer which is already connected, so I'm afraid that that doesn't help much. All I'm trying to figure out how to do now is to find out if it's even possible to use the computer as a wireless mirror for what's going on on the tablet since the computer is already connected to the projector. Does that help clarify...?

I appreciate the feedback so far. Please keep it coming. I feel like there's got to be some way that someone's using this nowadays. I may contact our extremely tech-savvy web development company and see if they've ever heard of other organizations trying to do something like this.

10/13/2013 10:57:38 PM

put the power grid to work

10/13/2013 11:05:29 PM

android tablets have miracast, airplay-spoof, etc apps you can use. depends on the actual hardware of the tablet as to whether it'll work though

windows rt is soon to be a dead OS, so that was a poor direction to head in. the gotomeeting thing might be your best option there, or an external wireless dongle if they have video out

10/14/2013 6:58:54 AM

Gonna give this a try. Need to make sure that everything on the wireless network will let these devices see each other and play nicely.

http://www.mirrorop.com/

10/15/2013 11:00:24 AM

Quote :

"You have no idea how true this statement is. However, there's no money in the budget to do this. We've already got more Android-based tablets than I was aware, and the next batch will be Surface RT's. So unfortunately, the money is already gone. Having the ability to connect the tablets to the projector wirelessly was a complete afterthought."

I am just wondering what was the thought process this place followed in the planning stage? Was there a planning stage?

10/15/2013 2:36:15 PM