HDMI - Adventure of the Seas

[Gaile]

We will be sailing Adventure shortly and I've found some general posts regarding many successfully connecting HDMI to view downloaded and/or streaming content, I was wondering if anyone had experience on doing this on Adventure.  Know casting is limited to the new ships, so hoping we can connect a HDMI and use a universal remote in our cabin.  Thanks in advance for any insights & tech directions.

[Biker19]

5 hours ago, Gaile said:

I was wondering if anyone had experience on doing this on Adventure. 

Usually, all the TVs are some sort of Samsung model and they usually work about the same in all cabins. The HDMI cable with a universal remote should work. The cabin steward can probably help you with it.

[Ashland]

Op if you have any problems connecting then either your steward will help or they'll call an onboard electrician. 

 

We've sailed on several RCI ships recently and had no problems being able to watch our Amazon Prime, Netflix etc etc.

 

We take our HDMI cable, universal remote and our Amazon Firestick with us always so we'll be well prepared with whatever we'll need.

[whitecap]

13 hours ago, Ashland said:

Op if you have any problems connecting then either your steward will help or they'll call an onboard electrician. 

 

We've sailed on several RCI ships recently and had no problems being able to watch our Amazon Prime, Netflix etc etc.

 

We take our HDMI cable, universal remote and our Amazon Firestick with us always so we'll be well prepared with whatever we'll need.

Ashland, not being very techy, please help.  Are you saying that I should be able to plug my Firestick into the tv and use the remote that came with it to watch Youtube TV or some other streaming service?  Thanks

[jdc944]

You can use a firestick without a problem.  I had an issue in my cabin changing the source on the TV using the remote.  I had to use the physical button on the TV to toggle over and change the source. Other than that, it worked fine.

[whitecap]

8 minutes ago, jdc944 said:

You can use a firestick without a problem.  I had an issue in my cabin changing the source on the TV using the remote.  I had to use the physical button on the TV to toggle over and change the source. Other than that, it worked fine.

And what source do you choose?

[orville99]

Downloaded content should not be a problem, but ability to stream is dependent on how your streaming service interacts with the ship's internet system. We have had mixed results with some service providers working and others that don't recognize your location and won't work.

[orville99]

Just now, whitecap said:

And what source do you choose?

Whichever HDMI port you plug your cable into. They are labeled on the TV.

[whitecap]

1 minute ago, orville99 said:

Whichever HDMI port you plug your cable into. They are labeled on the TV.

Got it.  Might have to give it a try on the Adventure in September.

[orville99]

22 minutes ago, whitecap said:

Got it.  Might have to give it a try on the Adventure in September.

We always use an iPad to stream, and connect it to the HDMI cable with one of these:

 

[RobInMN]

1 hour ago, whitecap said:

Ashland, not being very techy, please help.  Are you saying that I should be able to plug my Firestick into the tv and use the remote that came with it to watch Youtube TV or some other streaming service?  Thanks

Yes. We've done this on many cruises and in many hotels.

Buy a cheap universal remote. RC is all Samsung TVs, but if you use it on other cruise lines or hotels,  could be anything. LGs are probably the second most common I've run into. You'll need the universal remote to be able to use a "Source" button.

Someone recently pointed out that for Android phones, you can get a USB IR Blaster and use a universal remote app on your phone.

On newer ships, you may need to unplug the ethernet connection on the TV and reboot the TV (unplug/replug). The software is designed to run the custom UI from the network as priority over any HDMI input.

One thing to note about YTTV specifically, and likely other services, is that you may need a VPN. If you are out of country, that's somewhat obvious, and well documented about how different shows and things are available in different countries. For YTTV specifically, they are very quick to identify when you are watching outside your home viewing area. If you are outside your home viewing area, they will block viewing of not only your local TV stations, but also any recorded content from them. This doesn't apply to network level shows recorded via your local affiliate. Just any locally produced recorded content. I'm sure that if YTTV were to recognize that you are out of country, it would probably block most content (record or live). But I'm not willing to try it. 🙂 

I have the VPN on my Firestick, and I also have it on my phones. Since it's a pain to try to use the Firestick web browser and the remote's cursor control to reconnect to the ship's WIFI every time we wanted to watch something (not to mention kicking another device off), I have the Firestick use the mobile hotspot on one of our phones. We turn on the hotspot, then plug the Firestick in. Sharing your WiFi connection as a hotspot is something you can do on most Android phones, but not on Apple. I've also had the best luck maintaining YTTV still letting me watch local stuff when running this way with both the Firestick and my phone having the VPN on (seems redundant). Odd thing is, no VPN service I've found has servers in Minneapolis (my local area), and so I choose Chicago. I would not think that would work for local shows, but it does.

 

[Gaile]

Thanks all for the great information.  We'll soon be able to try it and see how our connection works.

[orville99]

48 minutes ago, Gaile said:

Thanks all for the great information.  We'll soon be able to try it and see how our connection works.

We use one of these remotes, and it has worked on every RCL ship we have been on in the past two years, including Adventure's sister ship Mariner:

 

 

[Ashland]

5 hours ago, whitecap said:

Ashland, not being very techy, please help.  Are you saying that I should be able to plug my Firestick into the tv and use the remote that came with it to watch Youtube TV or some other streaming service?  Thanks

Looks like you got some great answers. Remember if you have any problem ask your cabin steward and if they can't help they'll call an onboard electrician. These days this is a common situation and the onboard staff is very helpful.

[whitecap]

18 minutes ago, Ashland said:

Looks like you got some great answers. Remember if you have any problem ask your cabin steward and if they can't help they'll call an onboard electrician. These days this is a common situation and the onboard staff is very helpful.

Thanks so much.