Watching live TV on a boat in UK , using mobile phone with usbC to HDMI adapter

[FairweatherDave]

Son is desperate to watch live BBC TV in UK on a bigger screen than his phone, while we are on the boat, and he has unlimited data. If I can power a modern computer monitor with an inverter are there any issues I should worry about? Modern decent phone. Assume decent 4 or 5G signal. Some of these usbC to HDMI adapters allow you to charge your phone too, with a lead bought separately. Belkin do one at £25 on Amazon. Hope someone has some relevant experience. This is more about a one off event, not long term TV installation.

 

[mjcoon]

Son is desperate to watch live BBC TV in UK on a bigger screen than his phone, while we are on the boat, and he has unlimited data. If I can power a modern computer monitor with an inverter are there any issues I should worry about? Modern decent phone. Assume decent 4 or 5G signal. Some of these usbC to HDMI adapters allow you to charge your phone too, with a lead bought separately. Belkin do one at £25 on Amazon. Hope someone has some relevant experience. This is more about a one off event, not long term TV installation.

I didn't know that a phone could deliver a video stream to USB. I know even mine can do "casting" but you have to have a monitor/tv that can accept that. But I am curious rather than knowledgeable

 

[FairweatherDave]

Well I didn't know until about 4pm . But I am guessing casting quality might be a bit less quality than wired, plus my monitor wouldn't accept that input. But I went down the garden and tested my phone with mobile data and no wifi and was impressed by my phone screen. But hot spotting from the phone to my tablet was rubbish for live TV. So....these leads?

 

[ylop]

Simple answer is yes.

12V monitors are available if that helps. Easiest if monitor does the audio too.

Now a warning - which channel is he trying to watch? I think I’ve done this with iPlayer but had difficulty with channel 4. My conclusion was they don’t like you outputting hdmi from the channel 4 app - but worth digging in to that - it’s a “security” issue.

However if it works in the house it will work on the boat, assuming your 4g is good enough.

 

[wonkywinch]

Firestick or similar in the HDMI input of the monitor.

 

[ingenious]

Don't know about Google phones but iPhones can certainly do that although the screen resolution can take a bit of playing around with to get it looking acceptable.
As wonky say, casting to a Fire stick/Chromecast or having an Apple TV box using your phone as a hotspot

 

[wonkywinch]

You can connect the Firestick to phone hotspot too, so it's not casting vs Apple TV.

 

[FairweatherDave]

Ok. I'm ignorant, I have heard of Firesticks, but beyond that, no idea. But with no wifi, just a mobile signal, a firestick will do better than casting my phone screen to a tablet? I'm going for what constitutes the cheapest but adequate solution for a one off situation ..... the situation is an anchorage with phone signal, on one occasion.
Apols... casting? I meant hot spotting to a tablet.

 

[wonkywinch]

Amazon.co.uk

Plug it into HDMI port on monitor. Power it via USB power rather than the supplied AC adaptor. Connect it to the WiFi hotspot on your phone. Watched hundreds of TV and streaming channels.

 

[FairweatherDave]

Thanks Wonky, I shall delve deeper! As long as I can get BBC I'm sorted.

 

[wonkywinch]

It's also worth looking at buying a mifi dongle and a cheap data sim. The dongle has one purpose, to connect to a mobile network and transmit a wifi signal locally. It does a much better job than tethering to a phone mainly because they have a better antenna and are designed for this one purpose.

I have a portable one I travel with and a TP Link 4G router on the boat for rock solid wifi.

For data, I currently use Lebara (piggybacks Vodaphone). You can get 10gb a month for £1.10 (just over a quid, not a typo). Monthly contract for 8 months, cancel and buy another when it goes up.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cheap-mobile-finder/sim-only/

The dongle I have is a Huawei 4G, the 5g boat router a TP Link MR500 AC1200 with Poynting puck antenna added.

 

[ylop]

It's also worth looking at buying a mifi dongle and a cheap data sim.

It’s for a one off - like watching a football match, or the strictly come dancing final of something… he wants the cheapest, simplest solution - which is probably actually what he started with USB-C to HDMI cable and a monitor with integrated speakers. Everything else being suggested is probably a good way of trying to do it regularly - what he is proposing will cost less than a tenner.

 

[ingenious]

You can connect the Firestick to phone hotspot too, so it's not casting vs Apple TV.

I didn't know if the Fire stick could do that but, yes, a much better way than casting

 

[Daverw]

I didn't know if the Fire stick could do that but, yes, a much better way than casting

This is how we watch tv on board, firestick works with most tv apps, iplayer, Netflix, paramount etc, all via mobile router or mobile phone hotspot, we have vpn loaded to watch overseas stuff

 

[samfieldhouse]

I didn't know that a phone could deliver a video stream to USB. I know even mine can do "casting" but you have to have a monitor/tv that can accept that. But I am curious rather than knowledgeable

Well...That depends on the phone, the cable and the display.
USB C is a plug, not a standard. USB3 (and sometimes even 2), USB4, Thunderbolt 3, 4 and 5 and Display Port all use the "USB C" plug. It's a hot mess.
The cables correspond to those standards too, so a USB2 cable and a USB 3 Gen2 cable will look the same and do very different things.

Lesson is, be careful what "USB C" cable you buy. Some will carry power only (and some more power than others, anything from 5w to 130w), some data at USB2 speeds, some at TB5 speeds, some carry display signals (at varying resolutions, sometimes just mirroring) and some don't. The same goes for the plug on your phone.

I have a couple of these on board for home working USB C powered displays. The laptop powers them and the solar/domestics power the laptop. Works well and all packs away nicely.

 

[DreadShips]

Having recently done exactly this - plugging an android phone into a usb-hdmi adaptor in my daughter's room - I'd go down the firestick / Chromecast route. It's more convenient and it was impossible to do anything other than mirror the phone display - including the resolution - so I couldn't cast a video and access another app at the same time. That's with a Pixel 8a, so absolutely up to date.

It's a bit more expensive to buy the electronic gubbins, but you can also use it at home etc

 

[st599]

Well...That depends on the phone, the cable and the display.
USB C is a plug, not a standard. USB3 (and sometimes even 2), USB4, Thunderbolt 3, 4 and 5 and Display Port all use the "USB C" plug. It's a hot mess.
The cables correspond to those standards too, so a USB2 cable and a USB 3 Gen2 cable will look the same and do very different things.

Lesson is, be careful what "USB C" cable you buy. Some will carry power only (and some more power than others, anything from 5w to 130w), some data at USB2 speeds, some at TB5 speeds, some carry display signals (at varying resolutions, sometimes just mirroring) and some don't. The same goes for the plug on your phone.

I have a couple of these on board for home working USB C powered displays. The laptop powers them and the solar/domestics power the laptop. Works well and all packs away nicely.

It's more of a hot mess than that. There's a standard for sending audio and video over a cable (CTA-861). HDMI and Display port are two different implementations of that spec. But within each there are a number of subclasses (as the manufacturing tolerance needed to send HD nitrates is lower than needed for UHD) and HDMI have decided no longer to show what the subclass is.

Then you have USB which originally didn't carry video, but now some subclasses do, but again you need the correct software stack in the sender and high enough quality cable and connectors.

 

[FairweatherDave]

Thanks folks, as I suspected, I am right to be wary, but the cable HDMI adapter carefully purchased could do the job for me. But the Firestick is a more potent solution. I don’t get enough time on the boat to want to be watching TV, we go to escape, but my son would love it if we were permanently connected to everything. A best solution long term is probably to stay at home Saturday night and he can watch.....Eurovision.....and then we can stay as we are when aboard, quietly

 

[wonkywinch]

Thanks folks, as I suspected, I am right to be wary, but the cable HDMI adapter carefully purchased could do the job for me. But the Firestick is a more potent solution. I don’t get enough time on the boat to want to be watching TV, we go to escape, but my son would love it if we were permanently connected to everything. A best solution long term is probably to stay at home Saturday night and he can watch.....Eurovision.....and then we can stay as we are when aboard, quietly

I thought of suggesting that but was too polite

 

[DreadShips]

Thanks folks, as I suspected, I am right to be wary, but the cable HDMI adapter carefully purchased could do the job for me. But the Firestick is a more potent solution. I don’t get enough time on the boat to want to be watching TV, we go to escape, but my son would love it if we were permanently connected to everything. A best solution long term is probably to stay at home Saturday night and he can watch.....Eurovision.....and then we can stay as we are when aboard, quietly

Oh, well if it's Eurovision it's suddenly a LOT easier. The best way of watching it is from another room. With headphones on. Playing something else.