Samsung SMART TV

[pfish]

Hi,
I recently purchased a Samsung SMART TV which has wifi and an app that can connect and access the content on my computer. The problem is, the software is PC only
http://www.samsung.com/ca/consumer/t...il&tab=support
I feel there must be a way to connect to my iMac (Lion)
Any ideas or do I need to purchase apple tv.
There must be a way!
Thanks

[MisterMe]

By "software," do you mean the SMART TV app? The app is designed to access media on your computer over your LAN. I gather that the TV communicates with Windows neworks over IP. You do not need a Windows computer to establish a Windows network. Out of the box, MacOS X 10.7 (Lion) uses a Microsoft-licensed stack for Windows networking. Make sure that Windows networking is enabled on your Mac. Then you should have no problem logging into the Mac from your TV.

[pfish]

Hi,
By software I mean the software that you must download to your PC and run for the SMART TV app to see it. I do have Windows networking enabled but when I go to the "AllShare" app on the TV it says there is no device connected.

[MisterMe]

I have gone through darned near every page in the owners manual including every page related to Smart Hub and AllShare™. Nowhere in the 303 page manual did I find a reference to a PC-based utility that is required enable the TV's ability to access anything. Quite frankly, it would have been somewhat surprising if I had. This is because Samsung SMART TV sets are powerful computers in their own right. As such, they should be self-contained. Another consideration is that TV sets are not supposed to require computer science majors for setup; they are supposed to be setup by owners who have relatively little technical knowledge. Grandma would freak-out if she had to download a utility from the internet to allow her computer is be accessed by a TV set. The only reference to using a PC was as an option to download an update file that would then be transfered to the TV via USB thumb drive. Having said all that, if you have a reference to this PC utility requirement, then please give me the name of the document and the page number or give a verbatim quote of the specific language.

Absent a reference to specific language that states the requirement, then I am left to believe that you misunderstood what you read or saw. It is also worth noting that Samsung's owners manual includes a lot of weasel words. If something on the TV doesn't work on odd-numbered Tuesdays in months with "e" in the name, then that may be covered in the manual. So you have to give very specific information about your setup when asking for help.

To start:

• You have already assured me that Windows networking is enabled on your Mac.
• Make sure that your Mac and TV set are on the same subnet.

[pfish]

Please don't sound so nasty, I am only asking for help. In my first post I gave a link to the software that is needed on the PC in order for the TV to see the computer.
Here it is again
http://www.samsung.com/ca/consumer/t...il&tab=support
Click on the software button.
I phoned the Samsung support line (twice) and discussed in some great detail and they told me the TV would not work on a mac because the said mentioned software is Windows only.
I posted here because they are not Mac specialists and I thought someone here might have an answer that the Samsung tech did not.
I believe the computer and TV are on the same subnet, but if my "relatively little technically knowledged Grandma" could do it I don't think it should be that difficult.
Thank you for trying to help me with this, but if you can't, I do understand and maybe someone else has an idea.
Thanks again.

[pfish]

On page 213 of the 303 page manual it says " To view content on your PC, you must have connected your TV and your PC to your LAN and downloaded and installed AllShare PC Software on your PC.

[MisterMe]

On page 213 of the 303 page manual it says " To view content on your PC, you must have connected your TV and your PC to your LAN and downloaded and installed AllShare PC Software on your PC.

OK. Even after reading Page 213 several times, I overlooked this, the second of three bullets on the page. I would expect this software to run with a BootCamp installation of Windows. It might also be interesting to run the AllShare™ enabling software in virtual environment like Parallels Desktop running Windows. Without Windows in some fashion, your new SMART TV cannot access media on your computer. It appears as though Samsung does not want the business of Mac users.

You have to understand something. In your OP (first post), your only reference to the PC software to as "an app." However, I was interested in helping you. So I went to Samsung's website and searched your SMART TV's owners manual for a reference to "an app" that did what you were talking about. After I responded to your OP, you referred to AllShare in your second post. I returned to the owners manual and read through darned near every page of the 303-page manual. I paid particular attention to the sections that dealt with SmartHub and AllShare™. Somehow, I overlooked the reference to the required PC software.

Of course, I did not do all of this work just to help you. I was very interested in buying a Samsung SMART TV. It would have been a dumb decision by Samsung to restrict its TVs to Windows users. I was willing to help an owner who came to an Apple fan site devoted to Macintosh computers and mobile devices for help with a Samsung TV set if I would learn more about the TV set.

We could have both save a lot of time and frustration if you had given more specific information. That said, the end result is that we have both learned what the owners of a lot of other Samsung products already knew. Samsung makes some dumb decisions. You are able to use less than you paid for. I will wait a little longer to buy a smart TV to see what Apple offers if it reenters the market.

[Mikuro]

TVMobili is a cross-platform media server which claims to be compatible with Samsung's AllShare. I believe "AllShare" is merely Samsung's branding for a standard network protocol called DLNA, and therefore any DLNA-compatible software should work.

It might also be possible to run the AllShare program without using a virtual machine and without installing Windows using WINE. This is not easy to set up and configure, unfortunately, and it's a little different for every program, so I couldn't walk you through it. Hopefully TVMobili will work for you.