Review: Belkin ScreenCast AV4

If you’ve ever had the problem of having to find the best spot for your AV equipment but then having to spend thousands having cables installed and such, you’ll appreciate the Belkin ScreenCast AV4. This device allows you to connect up to 4 HDMI devices wirelessly to your HDTV. Using the 5GHz spectrum, the Belkin ScreenCast AV4 can easily transmit through walls and ceilings, up to 30 meters.

Check out the full review after the break.

When designing your home theater, it can sometimes be hard to have all your equipment in the same place. If you’ve got a lot of gear, it can take up valuable space as well. This is where the Belkin ScreenCast AV4 comes in. It’s great for situations where you want all your AV gear (set top box, gaming console, blu-ray player etc) in a cupboard at the back of the room and simply have the TV wall mounted at the front. The Belkin ScreenCast AV4 allows you to stream up to 4 devices from anywhere in the house (up to 30 meters) to your HDTV. Utilizing the 5GHz Wi-Fi spectrum, the Belkin ScreenCast AV4 is able to stream your devices in high definition 1080p and provide superior video and audio quality. It work’s with Blu-Ray protected disks and even 3D.

Setup

The setup of the Belkin ScreenCast AV4 is easy. You’ll receive a Transmitter and a Receiver, both quite small in size (the receiver being smaller than the transmitter). The transmitter includes 4 HDMI ports, a USB port for future updates (USB cable included!) and the IR blaster port. The receiver should be placed with the TV and includes a single HDMI port which should be plugged into your HDTV (HDMI cable included).

During my testing, I plugged in my Xbox 360 console, set top box and computer into 3 of the HDMI ports at the back of the Transmitter. I haven’t changed any settings on each of the devices, I’m just expecting  each device to behave normally. The only real struggle is attaching the IR blaster kit to each of the devices. In my case, I only had to attach it to the set top box since the Xbox 360 doesn’t use IR and my computer doesn’t have a remote. I just used a small piece of tape to attach the IR blaster to the set top box.

I then went ahead, turned my HDTV on and turned on the receiver. Using the extremely small remote, I had to go through a small setup and then I was up and running. I had clear, 1080p content streaming to my HDTV from over 10 meters away. I then used the Set Top Box remote to change channels which worked as it should. Changing the source is usually quick and only takes a few seconds, however, in some cases it did take up to 15 seconds for the source to change. I changed to my Xbox 360, picked up the controller and started playing a game. I was extremely surprised at the quality being streamed to the TV. It’s as if the Xbox 360 was directly plugged into my HDTV. I then switched input to my computer and attempted to play a 1080p movie and the Belkin ScreenCast AV4 was able to handle it flawlessly.

Interference

Being driven by Wi-Fi you would think that interference would be a huge problem. However, it wasn’t. While watching video I decided to fire up my laptop and start browsing the internet – the Belkin ScreenCast AV4 was able to continue streaming in 1080p quality without a single break in video. I also had a long conversation on my mobile phone (over 2G and 3G) to see if that interfered with the transmission and it didn’t.

Conclusion

The Belkin ScreenCast AV4 is a very easy to setup solution to people who dislike having to run cables between their AV gear and their TV or have a difficult  setup they wish to use. Setting up the Belkin ScreenCast AV4 is no different to setting up your HDMI devices normally and there is absolutely no difference in quality of the picture and audio. The Belkin ScreenCast AV4 will work with any HDMI device including computers, tablets, HDMI enabled mobile phones etc. Overall, a fantastic device.