Multi-room TV for Cheapskates!

I’ve been looking for a while for a solution that allows us to inexpensively allow us to watch recorded programs made on a single PVR in another room.  We watch TV either in the sitting room or our Conservatory (the latter mainly in the summer).  I have discovered a workable solution that may interest other forum members that is subscription free as we don’t want Sky or similar.

Firstly, we replaced our aging Humax Freesat box that has started playing up with a Panasonic Freeview Play box.  We bought the DMR-HWT150EB.

This PVR has TV Anywhere built in, this allows the box to stream to a tablet or phone.  There are a couple of (primitive) apps that allow TV to be streamed to a portable device and if used within the local network there are no DRM restrictions so you can stream in HD.

We have an Amazon Fire TV stick installed on the second TV.  The Fire stick is an Android device so I installed the Panasonic Diga Player application on the Fire stick.  You can use an application called Apps 2 Fire TV to install applications as the Fire Stick does not have the Google Play store.

The application requires a keyboard to operate it as the application expects a touch screen which the Fire remote cannot emulate.  I purchased a £7 mini keyboard from Amazon which has a touchpad built in.

The results are fabulous.  The application loads in a few seconds and lists the recordings that have been made on the Panasonic box, you can then view them which it does in HD.  The quality is excellent.  You can set the Panasonic box to run the server during the day so don’t even need to switch it on. 

I know we could use catch-up TV, but we don’t watch programs very quickly as TV isn’t a priority for us.

Richard