General Question

Esedess's avatar

Can a Kindle be used to remotely control my computer and wirelessly stream movies/etc from it?

Asked by Esedess (1942 points ) January 6th, 2012

I’m trying to find a relatively cheap iPad type device that can remotely control my computer from the couch. Inversely, if it could stream movies, music, etc… from the computer to the pad as well that would be great too (but not necessary). Is a Kindle capable of these things? If not, what is?

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6 Answers

HungryGuy's avatar

You need a media server. Not cheap.

Tropical_Willie's avatar

Kindle can handle e-books from Amazon, like @HungryGuy sez a media server and remote.

Esedess's avatar

@HungryGuy @Tropical_Willie

What if I got a touch pad device with an HDMI out. Could I install an app to remotely stream from my main computer onto the pad device, and then plug that pad into another TV via HDMI?

Tropical_Willie's avatar

Why – - Go through the touch pad ? ?
Every step between the source info ( Streaming Video ) and the display will cause a drop in quality.

HungryGuy's avatar

If your iPad device had an HDMI out, you could connect your iPad to your TV and watch movies that are on your iPad. That wouldn’t let you use your iPad as if it was a remote control for your computer.

Esedess's avatar

@HungryGuy @Tropical_Willie
Thanks for your help guys!
It turns out the Kindle Fire can actually do EXACTLY what I was looking for. Check it out!

However, the irony here is that as I found it could do exactly that, I also realized I had no way of getting that stream onto another TV from the Kindle (because it has no HDMI out)... I think if I’m gunna try what I mentioned above, it’s gunna cost me about $400 for something like a Toshiba Thrive.

To answer your question as to why? I have a 2 bedroom apt all to myself and there are TV’s in the bedrooms that aren’t connected to anything (I don’t have cable, just internet, and I don’t want to buy anymore computers). I have 1 REALLY good custom computer in the front room; and I wanted a relatively cheap way to get any content from that main computer to the other two rooms. Furthermore, I want a way to control the media being streamed without having to get up and go back to the front room. I would rather not purchase and run about 60ft of expensive HDMI cable throughout my apartment (and that would still leave me with no remote control from the back rooms). I looked into wireless HDMI products, but they were around $600 and sounded unreliable. A media server is also expensive, as you both mentioned. And to top it off, both of those are only good for one thing.
In getting a relatively cheap tablet, I can easily download an app to remote into my desktop, and then from there, output that image/sound to another monitor for viewing. It would also save me from having to buy more than one device since the portability of a tablet would make it easy to just carry around to the other rooms depending on where I wanted to have entertainment for that night. Not only that, but I would also gain a cool little tablet for reading, gaming, and just generally messing around. It seemed like the best option.
Basically, it just sucks having two rooms that don’t have any entertainment functionality beyond guitars, decorations, and additional space.

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