Saturday, May 3, 2014

Veebeam HD | Wireless PC to TV link | 1080p

Veebeam HD | Wireless PC to TV link | 1080pThe veebeam does what it says it will do, but only just. I would say that its very limited in its appeal and use. Read on for more.

Veebeam says that their product is good for viewing streaming video with, and it is in a limited sense. I had my veebeam hooked up via hdmi to my tv, and was streaming from a windows 7 laptop about 10 feet away from the tv (you really need to be in the same room for the veebeam to work).

I found that there was a 1 second delay between what was on the laptop and what was on the tv screen. So if you were hoping to use the veebeam as a wireless second monitor you can forget that.

The image quality was a bit choppy as well unless you use the veebeam player, their free media player. When using this I had good quality video and good quality audio streaming from my computer to my tv but you can't queue up netflix or other such services with this. It would have to be either media on your computer or dvds/blu-ray discs in your disc drive.

The biggest use of the veebeam would if you want to use it for Hulu, or Netflix, or a similar service, but the diminished quality unless using their player limits that use.

Perhaps even more limiting is the fact that you really need the computer in the same room as your tv to make use of the device. Considering that with most modern devices you can hook up your computer to your tv via hdmi or some other cabled solution and get better quality, the only use for veebeam would if you have a desktop in the same room as your tv and don't want to bother running long cables everywhere, or you have an older tv or older computer where you can't make the appropriate connection.

Even if you are in one of the above situations I am still doubtful that the veebeam is worth $150. If they could have gotten it down to instant streaming (whether through a powered usb transmitter or some other means) the veebeam's value proposition would be much higher. As it is I see it as being a very specific solution to a very specific problem. It will undoubtably be exactly what some people want, but on the other hand it is not powerful or versatile enough to be applicable to everyone's situation. I think 3 stars reflects this fairly well.

On a side note the veebeam software shutdown windows aero when it was in use no idea why that would be as my computer is more than powerful enough to run the two at the same time.

I do not recommend purchasing this item as the performance is unreliable as is the customer service and warranty.

This item was purchased three times from Amazon. We were using it to display a computer monitor on a wall mount television for our monthly training class. The first unit worked properly for two months and met our expectations. It then had problems with the display resolutions and the settings function became unresponsive.

In contacting customer service we discovered that the company is UK based and they provide customer support based on their business hours which are not necessarily convenient for US customers. After email correspondence with Veebeam we then discovered that they do not honor their printed 1-year warranty.

I was told that I must return the item through Amazon and repurchase it. Amazon was kind enough to issue a return even though the unit was outside their return window.

We then received our replacement unit which had the same problem with the firmware being corrupted which Veebeam said must have happened in shipping. I again scheduled an Amazon return (Thank you, Amazon, for your excellent customer service.)

When I received the third unit which again had corrupted firmware out of the box I was told by Veebeam that my environment was somehow corrupting the firmware and there was nothing that the company could do.

Per Veebeam -

"Since Veebeam is fulfilled by Amazon, and we have no US office (we are only based in the UK), Amazon operate our returns/warranty policy which is a 30 day returns policy and a 1 year warranty period."

Amazon indicated that there is no warranty or anything beyond the regular return policy for this item.

Per Veebeam -

Online Chat is "available Monday to Friday, 4am to 12 noon, Eastern Time."

Despite trying on various days and times I have always received the message that a support representative is not available.

Buy Veebeam HD | Wireless PC to TV link | 1080p Now

I bought this product knowing that it had one function and only one, this was meant to connect my PC or laptop to my TV without any wires, that's it. If that had worked I would be writing a very different review. A little background information on why I bought this!

For me and my family, who does not subscribe to Cable or Satellite TV, mainly because we watch very select shows (due to lack of time)and some of them are available on the free to air channels, and I'm are pretty net savvy (at least I would like to think so), so why spend hundreds of dollars every month on a TV subscription which would have less than 20% utilization?

The other shows we watch are available online (HULU, Netflix, Clicker, VUDU, Playstation Store, Amazon Video etc), and most of the above mentioned websites are taken care of with my PS3 and ROKU. The only problem was HULU plus web only episodes and clicker, and for that we have to hook up the laptop to the TV, I used wires to do that, HDMI or SVGA, worked fine with no problems except for the fact my 18 month old son loved to pull wires and play with it, and hence we had to put a child gate around the TV and can't leave the wires connected to the TV.

I have a 67 inch Samsung DLP television (the next biggest model of the one in this link)Samsung HL61A750 61-Inch 1080p LED Powered DLP HDTV,the picture quality of which I love, and 2 other 55" and 50" Samsung LCD TV's as well! I bought the VEEBEAM intending to connect this to either one of the above mentioned TV's, and stream shows wirelessly from the PC to TV, I read the reviews which warned me against it but still decided to give this a try, my optimism turned out to be foolish!

To be fair to VEEBEAM, the setup and installation was pretty straight forward and easy, the problems all started once I got it all hooked up and ready to stream! It worked fine and as I read in the reviews, there was a 1 sec lag between the PC(my Gateway laptop with a Intel Pentium Core I3 processor and Windows 7 Home Premium, so we know it was not the system config that caused the problem) and I was okay with that, as long as the wireless connectivity was working as promised, but that was all good for 15 minutes, and then in the middle of a video, the connection was lost and the message saying "PC to Veebeam Link is lost" was displayed ont he TV screen. The laptop was hardly 4 or 5 ft away from the Veebeam box and there was no solid/opaque object between the two, so I thought it was just a glitch, and removed the USB connector and reconnected the Veebeam again. That also lasted for 15 min, after a few more tries and trying to tweak the connection and the settings on my laptop in multiple ways, i gave up!

While it worked, the picture quality was poor at best, sound even through my AV receiver was not the best, and the picture at times got stuck and froze on the TV screen while the video on the PC was playing as normal.

I tried the connection again and again for a week, with different TV's and different settings on the TV and laptop (changed HDMI ports/cables, display configurations etc). I guess partly because I was just stubborn to make it work (the testosterone led "It's not a big deal, I can fix it" stupidness)and partly because I wanted the freedom from cables that bad. But to my frustration all the tries ended with the same result, at best it ran without trouble for 40 min, and it got stuck within the last few minutes of "Justified", that is when I decided to get this returned and revert to just cables and save myself $99 bucks!

Thanks to amazon and the good return policy, I bought it when it came on the "Deal of the Day", I was able to return it without hazzles, and did ship it back last Saturday! Still waiting for my refund money to show up!

So a warning to anyone who is considering investing money and time to get this VeeBeam gizmo, PLEASE DON'T, because it doesn't work! Anyone of you who got it as a gift from someone, just one word of advice REGIFT!

If any one of you who is reading this, knows of a better brand or product which can actually DO what this VeeBeam Promises to do, please feel free to let me know!

Thanks!

Edited on 5/17/2011:

Got the refund money processed the next day after the shipment was recieved by Amazon, and I got the entire amount back on the card the very next day! Amazon return policy and promptness rocks, but the product sucks, please stay away from it!

Read Best Reviews of Veebeam HD | Wireless PC to TV link | 1080p Here

I has high hopes for this product, unfortunately the device could not be made to function. My computer and networking skills well above average and I could not make any progress. To give the veebeam device the benefit of the doubt, I moved the sending and receiving units to a distance of less than one meter which had no effect. I worked with Veebeam's tech support people for more than two hours, say zero progress, and surrendered. I have packed it all back up returned it. I went with a 15' cable connection which works perfectly.

Want Veebeam HD | Wireless PC to TV link | 1080p Discount?

Just got my Veebeam box this week and this is pretty addictive I must say. Install is pretty simple with the main box going into the TV (HDMI in my case) and you can even hook it up to your audio system if you have one. On the PC side, you just need to install a client. The use case is then pretty awesome as all you need to do is put the dongle to your PC and turn on your TV. The PC will immidiatly start replicating wirelessly to your TV with a bit a wireless USB magic...

The really cool thing is that you have a play mode where you can select a movie file from you laptop and play it wirelessly onto your TV while you can still do emails or else on the laptop!

I must say I was initially skeptical about the video quality but after trying it, I am sold. I have tried some 720p files of action movie and it feels like watching a blu-ray on my TV eventhough the signal is in fact wirelessly transmitted from my laptop onto the TV set. I have tried streaming HD over wifi and it's a real pain... this solves it!

Bottom line: If you have lots of movies / TV series saved on our laptop or external HD and you don't want to crawl under your TV set to connect an HDMI or else... This is the product for you.

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