Podcasts on Your TV

There’s a lot of high quality video podcasts now, probably because the iTunes store promoted them so well.  My wife and I are into videogames, and whilst videogame-related TV is rubbish (in the UK), there’s loads of great podcasts.

The problem is, watching video podcasts on a computer sucks.  Fortunately, there’s tonnes of ways of playing this content on a TV.

You could build a MythTV box or get a Media Centre PC, but I’m going to focus on using equipment you’ve already got, with the exception of the Apple TV (because it’s generally cheaper than a Media Centre PC).

Laptop/PC

If your TV has VGA or DVI input you can plug a netbook, laptop or computer into it to watch videos.  If you’ve got a mac it probably has IR and a remote, so the experience is relatively seamless.  You’ll need an audio cable.

Good: Cheap, even if you need to buy cables.

Bad: Moving a laptop around just to watch video podcasts, messing with cables behind your TV or AV kit.

Apple TV

This is the Rolls Royce of all possible solutions.  The integration with iTunes is flawless: if you play back on your computer it’ll remember where you left off and continue on the Apple TV.  You can also use the Apple TV as a remote speaker, and it works incredibly well with the iPhone Remote software.

Playback quality is good, all the content I’ve tried scales well.  My favourites, 1up Show and now CO-OP look like broadcast TV now they’ve switched to Revision3.

Apple TV syncs with your computer so you won’t need to do anything to watch video podcasts, just pick up the remote and go.

Good: Easy set up.  Relatively cheap considering it’ll play back TV shows, movies and music.  You’d get less value for money from it if you’re not a big iTunes user though.  Remote speaker and iPhone Remote are genius.

Bad: Requires a TV that does HD, and it’s not without its share of bugs (I had a sync glitch that wouldn’t go away without a reset).  Sync over wireless is slow with video content, naturally.

Wii

There’s a few ways to get content onto a Wii without hacking it, but the framerates aren’t always that good.  The Opera browser is usually used for this.  Read more in our Wii Media Centre Tips.

Good: If you’ve got a Wii you can use it to liberate podcasts from your computer.

Bad: Takes a lot of fiddling about.

PS3

The PS3 is a little bit better than the Wii.  There’s no specific support for podcasts so it won’t automatically download or sync content like Apple TV, but the format support is way better than most people expect.  I copy videos to a memory stick or USB memory device and they generally play back without a hitch: even files that don’t play on Apple TV.

The PS3 also supports DLNA which makes playback 0 hassle: it’ll stream podcasts off your Mac or PC.  However, streaming videos over wireless can be hit or miss.  You’ll need software to do this from a Mac, but Windows should work using Windows Media Player.

Read more in our PS3 Media Centre Tips article.

Good: DLNA can make this a great solution, format support is also relatively strong.  Effectively a cheap solution if you own a PS3.  Good external storage support which means you can keep content off your PS3 if it’s fully loaded up with games and demos.

Bad: Streaming videos over wireless with DLNA might not work too well for you.  Manually copying videos isn’t as seamless as the Apple TV experience.

PSP

PSP 2000 supports a TV out cable.  The PSP also supports podcasts: you can subscribe to video feeds, but it works in a weird Sony way that doesn’t make 100% sense to me.  The AV cables are around £25/$20.  Format support is weak to say the least.  Videos must be encoded in a specific format else the PSP seems to freak out.

Good: Portable and should look good on a TV with component cables (I haven’t tested it myself).

Bad: Sony’s built-in podcast support is weird, it appears to be some sort of service they provide rather than just working with any old feeds.  Format support is nowhere near as good as the PS3, which seems strange to me.

iPod/iPhone

iPod and iPhone AV support is pretty good.  You can get cables through Apple, and there are cheaper third party ones.  I used to use my 3G iPod to watch/listen to podcasts on TV, and it generally worked fairly well.  Sometimes I had to right-click a video in iTunes and say ‘Convert for iPod’.

Good: Easy solution if you own an iPod.

Bad: It’s not as seamless as some of the other solutions here, using a remote works with the right type of dock but it doesn’t give full control over the iPod so you constantly have to get up to grab the iPod.

Conclusion

Of all the solutions I’ve ever tried, Apple TV is the king of podcasts on your home AV system.  It’s generally zero hassle and videos look great on it.

From the moment we got an Apple TV we’ve watched a lot more video podcasts, and it’s really made me think about this type of content as a serious competitor to broadcast TV.  Rather than being limited to the endless soaps and repeated documentaries of British television, I’ve found niche content on the Internet that I’m really interested in.  And this content is free!