Making my flatscreen work wirelessly off a laptop

[hal55]

I have a seven year old Philips HD TV, nice unit with HDMI (both used) and USB inputs. It does not however do the wireless thing. I haven't been bothered by this but the America's Cup Challenger series has now begun and the massive, foiling catamarans are the most spectacular racing boats I've ever seen. Hooking the laptop up to the TV (getting the action by Youtube) is a pain since I can't get the TV and laptop to see each other by USB and using HDMI means pulling stuff out of the racks and manually switching cables.
Ideally, I'd like to just stream the action straight from the laptop avoiding cables completely, but if I do this will there be a loss of quality or jerky action? I've just streamed at 480p so far but would like the option of going to 720 or even 1080 if I find material that justifies it.
It's easy enough to add boxes that will add extra HDMI sockets to the TV, but from there I don't know where to go. The Lenovo laptop is only 2 years old, I'm pretty sure it does Blutooth but other wireless protocols, if any, that it suports are a mystery to me. Please guys, what do I need to add wireless capability to my TV (at reasonable cost preferred).

Hal55

[StanleyB]

I suggest that you get an internet capable TV that has a RJ45 socket on it. That's the only method that I know of that offers fast wireless streaming from a laptop. You'll need to add a dedicated wireless repeater with an RJ45 socket on it to the TV package as well.
I did a write up a year or so ago in this section of the forum on how to set up the wireless connection.

[Tony Moore]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Natural-CX-919-RK3188-Bluetooth-Android/dp/B00CRXDTII/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1SJW5SRL28JPG&coliid=I3KKDUAXFUI49U

A possibility maybe? This thing is a wifi android PC in a small dongley bit. There are other similar things on Amazon, I've not tried any though. Another possibility is a RaspberryPi loaded with Raspbmc (which is the Xbox media centre ported to linux) I _have_ tried that and it works a treat. (But RaspPi not wifi by default so then you need more USB bits hanging off it) The CX-919 in the link above would seem to be ready made for converting a non-smart TV to a smart one. However, as I said, I've not tried one so I don't know how good they are or how easy to set up and use.

Cheers,
Tony

ps. Just noticed that you said you had all HDMIs used up. A different story then...

[Stratmangler]

http://www.maplin.co.uk/3-way-automatic-hdmi-switch-265062

[Tony Moore]

Who knew Maplin might have something useful? :eyebrows:

[hal55]

Does look useful. I'd have preferred wireless, but for the cost of the switch plus an extra HDMI cable it's a good low cost solution. Surely there would then be some form of blutooth receiver, possibly cheaper than the Amazon offering, that would then receive signals from the laptop. Although I'd only really be interested in that if it didn't stuff up reception and make it jerk, which Stanley reckons is the case. Gets me headed in the right direction.

Hal55