Galaxy S3 question

Pez

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jun 9, 2006
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I believe the answer to my question is "no", but thought I'd ask in case people know of new ways of doing things.

Can the S3 connect to a USB hub and utilize video out to a TV (via MHL cable) at the same time? I am trying to find a way to watch videos from external hard drives on my TV through my phone.

Here's what I'm currently doing:

Running TVersity on my PC
Streaming video files on my phone through Skifta app
Video out to TV through MHL cable

I'm hoping there's a way I can video out with the cable and utilize USB devices (controllers, drives, etc). I haven't tried streaming media from an external to my phone via my above setup, but I suppose I can give it a shot.

Thanks in advance.
 
Get one of those portable Wifi hard drives? Get a larger micro SD? 64GB is cheap these days. With an HTCphone you could use their wireless HDMI mirroring adapter but execution isn't perfect... I really hope the revamped Nexus Q brings true wireless mirroring to Android. As for controllers and keyboards, there's always Bluetooth.
 
Doesn't the USB of the MHL connection have to go to a power source? If not you might want to check on a program called Stikmount and see if that will mount the drive you are wanting to use.
 
Yes, you need to provide a power source for most HDMI to MHL adapters (at least all the one's I've seen). Frankly I think Samsung and HTC should've waited another year or two until there were more TVs with native MHL so at least it'd truly be a single cable charging/video solution. As it is, I'd rather have micro HDMI plus USB right now... Even tho I'm on my second phone with MHL. Moto is still using micro HDMI.

I vaguely remember Samsung saying the reason they changed the MHL pin out on the SGS3 (requiring new adapters) had something to do with this (USB peripherals), but I can't remember specifics or how it'd possibly help matters.
 
Thanks for the replies. Another question: when I TV out, a very small part of the screen is cut off (example: the battery indicator is almost completely cut off). I can't figure out why. I tried playing with the settings on two TV's and the phone with no luck. Any thoughts?


For the price of the AllShare hub, I might as well get the new Vizio Costar. I'm not certain that's the route I want to go. Plus, I'd like to find a way to play games on my TV without that horrible 1 second delay.

Maybe there's some type of bluetooth hub I can connect my phone and the externals to? I don't know if such a thing exists, and if it does, I don't know if it's a cost effective solution.

The MHL adapter does require power. The cable connects to the phone, then the power cable and HDMI cables plug into that. I think the only things I can connect to the phone while using the video out cable are bluetooth devices. I think that one video in another thread had the NZ guy playing Mario Kart 64 on the TV using a wireless/bt wii controller.
 
It may simply be your TV
When I hook up my laptop via HDMI to our TV the edges are slightly cut off
 
Another option could be to get the Plex server on your PC and the Plex android client and then stream to your Phone and then to your TV through the MHL,Plex. I actually have a Roku with the Plex channel, Plex server on my PC and the Plex client on my SGS3 also. It's not perfect but it does a decent enough job.
 
Yeah, sometimes you can't fix overscan, depends on the TV and device... My TV has no preferences for that and it happens with both my tablet and phone.
 
I vaguely remember Samsung saying the reason they changed the MHL pin out on the SGS3 (requiring new adapters) had something to do with this (USB peripherals), but I can't remember specifics or how it'd possibly help matters.

The MHL adapter does require power. The cable connects to the phone, then the power cable and HDMI cables plug into that. I think the only things I can connect to the phone while using the video out cable are bluetooth devices. I think that one video in another thread had the NZ guy playing Mario Kart 64 on the TV using a wireless/bt wii controller.

Yep this has been my quest since I saw that same video of all the things you can do with OTG on the S3. So far there is no cable that allows for MHL + OTG. There is hope tho, check out youtube videos for the "spider laptop" that was just recently announced and is on sale in Asia. It's basically another laptop dock thing for phones, but this one was designed around the S3 and the new 11 pin MHL cables that do allow for MHL+OTG+Power. The only thing you can do now is MHL + power and then wireless tethering like you describe.

I think the key is the adapter they use that routes all of the proper wires to the right place with the right resistors so the phone knows to enable OTG and MHL at the same time. The videos show S3 <=> MHL <=> Adapater <=> MicroHDMI <=> Laptop <=> USB and this is while the S3 gets charged by the 8000mAh battery on the laptop. It really seems that nobody has made the right MHL adapter yet that attaches all 11 wires of the new MHL port. Shouldn't be too long now...I've been checking Olleh's store (they make that laptop) to see if they sell that adapter separately but so far nothing.
 
Thanks Silent. I'll have to be on the lookout for that. Who needs a Roku when your phone can do all that stuff and more.

Two new questions:
Does the S3 support USB monitors? I tried using connecting a coworkers USB monitor to my phone via USB OTG, and no luck. I didn't know if there were separate app/drivers required for it, but I'm guessing that it isn't supported.

Can I connect two blue tooth devices (say game controllers), and multi-play on an N64 emulator (say Mario Kart 64)? Or would I only be able to single play? If so, then I guess that's a limitation of the emulators and not the phone.

Another option could be to get the Plex server on your PC and the Plex android client and then stream to your Phone and then to your TV through the MHL,Plex. I actually have a Roku with the Plex channel, Plex server on my PC and the Plex client on my SGS3 also. It's not perfect but it does a decent enough job.

This is what I'm currently doing, I'm just running a TVersity server instead of Plex. I could just as easily run Plex (I have the software on my PC, just never used it). I originally had the software because I was trying to get my DirectTV HD receiver to stream content from my PC, but that had limited success (due to limitations with the DTV software). It does work, but it is very limited.
 
Samsung's own (newer) MHL adapter doesn't enable USB traffic over the changing port? You would think if they redesigned the port for this they'd build the appropriate adapter, heh...
 
I'm sorry if this is a stupid question or it's been answered, but can you not plug the TV into the computer? Or do you want to control it wirelessly?
 
I'm sorry if this is a stupid question or it's been answered, but can you not plug the TV into the computer? Or do you want to control it wirelessly?


Its easy that way but the real question is we all want flexibility and options just like OP is looking for i was in look for the same feature but ended up without any success on my S2 which has OTG and MHL same like s3. :(
 
I'm sorry if this is a stupid question or it's been answered, but can you not plug the TV into the computer? Or do you want to control it wirelessly?

My PC isn't a media PC, so it's at my desk connected to my 30 inch monitor. I've been looking for ways to stream my media on my PC to my TV's without getting a Roku or something similar. DirectTV HD boxes have some support (good for streaming pictures and music, but shitty for videos), but there seems to be no intention by them to actually turn them into media boxes, so that's a no-go.


I found answers to some of my questions that others might want to hear:

It looks like the All-Share Cast is the way I'll need to go (video linked to earlier), but it's not currently available to me (not enabled on my Verizon phone). Here's another Youtube video of a user demo'ing the dongle and feature.

It looks like I could root my phone to get it enabled, but I don't really have a need to do that now (plus, I don't want to spend money on the dongle when I need to buy a snow blower before the snow season starts). Using the dongle and All-Share feature, I should be able to stream content from USB devices attached to the phone.

On a side note - I still haven't been able to get my TV's to not cut off the screen.
 
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