Thanks all for your comments. It seems I should follow Moose's advice
and give the Panasonic Blu-Ray player a try. After looking through the
PDF manual for the device it appears that the interface/menu the Blu-Ray
player presents may be the same as the Panasonic TV. I'm not clear
about that since it's all a bit cryptic but there's an unlabeled diagram
that looks a bit like the interface the TV set provides.
My problem with the Panasonic Blu-Ray player is that the thing is worse
than an early Windows computer for locking up. Press some buttons in
the wrong sequence and it may go catatonic. Of course, there's no
on/off switch that is not controlled by the catatonic software so it
requires dropping the power to wake it up. It should be easy enough to
move the network cable to give it a try. Maybe I can even download a
firmware update. Not likely I think but it sure could use one.
Chuck Norcutt
On 12/5/2013 5:24 PM, Moose wrote:
> On 12/5/2013 1:03 PM, Chuck Norcutt wrote:
>> I've recently subscribed to NetFlix and Amazon streaming video services
>> and loving it. ...
>>
>> But when I go to Florida I'll still have an HDTV set to use and a router
>> not far away but the TV there has no built-in streaming capability.
>> What external device do I need to buy to keep NetFlix and Amazon coming
>> in?
>
> My sons say AppleTV. Certainly it works well at one son's house
>
>> I think the Panasonic Blu-Ray player I have will do that in some
>> fashion or other but that seems an odd way to receive video.
>
> You make the old fart mistake of thinking of it as a disc player. It's a
> computer designed to acquire video and send it
> to a TV. Why should it matter whether it reads it from a disc or receives it
> from WiFi?
>
> That said, the firmware that does these things varies a lot in capability.
> When our DVD player died, I bought a Panny BR
> player, It went back in a couple of days for a Samsung. The Panny's ability
> to play videos from anything other than a
> disc was pitiful. A call to support made it clear they had no plans to
> improve it. The Samsung is very good. I do a fair
> amount of that.
>
> For example, a recent TOP mentioned a documentary about photographer Saul
> Leiter. I downloaded it from the web and can
> watch it on my TV. When our DVR went blooie during a trip and when there's a
> power outage, I simply jump on the web and
> grab the missed episodes. Even with Netflix and Hulu+, there are a lot of
> shows not available, or not available in a
> timely fashion.
>
> OTOH, the Sammy is very slow with Netflix, much slower and clunkier than the
> AppleTV. But that's likely mostly poor
> firmware for that function. This subject just reminded me that there is now a
> wifi router acting as repeater right above
> it. I ran a cable to the router. That's made Netflix more responsive, but not
> yet great.
>
> 'Twere me, I'd try the Panny BR player. If it works, you're home free. If
> not, then you can add a dedicated streaming
> device.
>
> Slow Stream Moose
>
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