The508Seal

Web to TV

Web to TV has become commonly accepted terminology for viewing web media on a television. While IPTV is a specific technical term for television content delivered over internet protocol. Web-to-TV (with and without hyphens) is used to describe both content and the hardware and software necessary to view web media on a TV.

A Web-to-TV installation uses a variety of 3rd party components, typically built around a PC capable of running a browser and the most popular codecs (Flash, Windows Media Player, Real, Quicktime, etc.). Some examples of stereo cabinet friendly PCs can be found here

The most popular hardware solutions are Media Extenders - hardware components that provide A/V outputs for a TV, Ethernet and Wireless adapters for connection to a PC capable of serving media (either online or locally stored). Examples of Media Extenders are Netgear xyz, Dline abc, the XBOX 360 from Microsoft and the PS3 from Sony. Each of these components can be configured to stream or view content delivered from a PC on the user's home network and serve that content to the television/stereo through the A/V outputs. Each device will have it own set of limitations on content and quality.