Yesterday was the first time that I came “this close” to my prefect presenting peripherals setup. I’ve wanted to be able to present from a tablet without the tether of a VGA or HDMI cable for years but it has never been possible. I have tried various things, but none worked out … either the performance sucked, the screen resolution was too low, or it just flat-out didn’t work at all.
Then came along Miracast, powered by hardware and enabled in Windows 8.1 with no drivers required. Last year Microsoft launched the Wireless Display Adapter (Amazon.com, Amazon UK). This is a dongle that plugs into HDMI capable TVs and projectors, and is powered by USB (from the display device or direct from power). I picked one up last November in the USA, and my employer just started distributing them to resellers (not direct via retail) in Ireland.
Previous to yesterday, I have been using my dongle to project ripped video and Netflix to the TV. It works perfectly, sending video and audio to the TV. There are times when I work from home when I’m sitting on the couch working on my laptop while video streams to the TV. And in theory, I could even use the TV as a second monitor! And yes, I’ve even used the TV for rehearsing presentations.
But yesterday was the first time that I presented using Miracast via the Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter. I brought along a cheap Windows tablet with Office installed and the dongle was plugged into a nice HDMI ready projector, and power came direct from a socket. The tablet connected flawlessly. However, PowerPoint killed the tablet … 1 GB RAM is just not enough. I ended up using my KIRAbook to present … wirelessly. It was nice to set up in the room where I wanted to be instead of behind a podium. Sure I would have liked to have roamed … but it was not to be.
Anyway, next time, I’ll have a Toshiba Encore that has 2 GB RAM and I’ve verified that PowerPoint will work on. And that will allow me to roam, using presenter mode on the tablet and have my notes in front of me.
FYI: the dongle works really well. But we have a Sony display (a TV without a tuner) at work that we cannot get dongles to work with. Everything else has worked fine.
HI Aidan, Nice to know… i have bought one during TechDays here in France 10 days ago, and tried it at home (same as you) to find out it is quite a must have. I had a Netgear Wifi to HDMI thingy, that never got to work correctly..too laggy, and lost conection every 15 minutes.
The Microsoft dongle has so far been kind enough to let me use the TV for that big screen movie watching from the surface pro 3… but I have yet to use it in Trainer’s Mode 🙂
glad to know it works so well, so far i’m very pleased with it…that coupled with a Microsoft Presenter Mouse 8000 makes for a killer presentation kit (should propose that combo for MCTs 🙂 )
Have you tried using this with a Domain Joined Windows 8.1 system? For the life of me I cannot get any Windows 8.1 (Enterprise) domain joined PC to work with ANY Miracast adapter. Phones/Tablets connect just fine however.
Nope, I haven’t. Might be a GPO blocking it?
We use it with our Surface Pro 3’s running in a domain environment and Windows 8.1 x64 without any issues.
Bought one based on this blog – truly is a lovely thing. Have Chromecast, had some other dongles – but this is a solid thing. Thanks very much
Wish they’d made the plastic thing at the top less opaque but you can’t have everything
Had the same problem. Was caused by an old Wireless Network Policy type XP. Replaced this with a Windows Vista and higher policy and it works fine now.
Location: Computer Configuration\Policies\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Wireless Network (IEEE 802.11) Policies