It also spontaneously disconnected a couple of times-a glitch I didn’t run into with the Push2TV. Robert Cardin Actiontec’s ScreenBeam Pro didn’t perform nearly as well as its competitor did.Īudio and video quality were pretty good with both devices, but in playing half a dozen YouTube videos, I noticed that the ScreenBeam Pro was prone to minor artifacts. You need to pair the laptop and receiver only once, and you can choose to have WiDi connect the two devices automatically when you launch the program. The pairing routine provides security for the connection, which is completely independent of your Wi-Fi network (apart from firmware updates for the Push2TV). Once you do, the software starts to stream the laptop’s video and audio to the TV.
It automatically detects the WiDi adapter, sets up a peer-to-peer wireless connection, and initiates a pairing routine that’s similar to the process of pairing Bluetooth devices: The software prompts you to type in a numeric code that appears on the TV.
Intel’s WiDi software does not support Macs, but it does support a specific list of WIndows 7 and 8 systems (see below for more details on compatibility). But if wireless streaming is something you must have, and if your laptop supports WiDi, you might consider Netgear’s product, which was the more reliable of the two-once I got it up and running. Unless you’re prepared for the possibility of arduous troubleshooting, I wouldn’t bother with either adapter. The Lenovo ThinkPad Helix Ultrabook that I used for testing required multiple reboots, driver updates, and reinstallations of Intel’s software. Pretty hard, as it turns out: Both devices proved enormously complicated to set up. Two fourth-gen adapters, Actiontec’s ScreenBeam Pro and Netgear’s Push2TV, are each smaller than a deck of cards, with just a couple of ports. Intel’s WiDi technology promises a lot: The third and fourth generations can wirelessly stream up to 1080p video, including copy-protected content such as commercially pressed Blu-ray movies, to a receiver embedded in an HDTV, a video projector, or some other display-or to a stand-alone receiver with an HDMI output that you plug into a display.
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