How to get HandsOnTV onto your tv

ok ...... as with all our grand adventures in Show of Hands land and folk music, we have to lift ourselves up by our bootstraps - i.e. do everything without any money initially and then use whatever income to make it go better. Also, as we are trying to do 'new' things, we have to work in the dark a bit, pushing some boundaries, and experimenting ....
So, this is not an 'app' like Youtube or Facebook, but a website. And as such 'casting within the app' is not possible at this point.
With an android phone, iphone or ipad, or any laptop, several options are available. It seems generally that the Chrome browser provides the most alterntives too
You will alo need a ‘smart tv’ of course. The more recent the better, as there have been marked improvements in these technologies in the past 3 years.

1.  There is actually a web browser app on your tv, so with some thumb exercise on your remote you could actually get handsontv up on the tv itself. Then you can get the link of the item you want to watch, if navigation is too annoying on the tv screen, put that into the browser on the tv, login and hey presto .....from one subscriber - ”this gave by far the best result. Watched the first half of The Secret Garden concert and it played perfectly and the quality was stunning. Only issue is having to use the remote as a pointer and keyboard input but fine apart from that.”
2.  You can get a Google Chromecast device from currys (or second hand) for not a lot, and then use that to cast HandsOnTV (and anything else on your phone too) to the tv. This is the best option all round I have found in my personal testing so far.

3.  You can download a 'Cast for Chrome' app, or ‘Castify’ (both free) which you install on your phone, and it too will allow you to cast HandsOnTV to your tv. It is also an excellent option.

4.  Depending on your phone/tv combination you should have 'mirroring' functions on your phone which allow you to 'mirror' your phone screen with the tv and you can then watch handsontv that way. Depending on the combination there can be some slight quality loss sometimes. On ipad you can use Apple TV or Airplay 2.

5.  You can also get your laptop and plug straight into the tv using a hdmi cable too. That gives excellent results. This is a high quality option for ipad, laptop, or tablet to tv as well

6.  For iphones, ipads and other Apple devices generally, there are several options, all slightly different depending on your OS version and tv. The Chromecast device works exceptionally well for Apple devices, and there are Youtube instruction videos as well as direct support instructions for iphones and ipads at https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/ipad/ipad2a5b3f69/ipados
 

There are many different phones and tvs, so it is really hard to know what will work best for you. Plus this whole area is being improved (changed anyway) all the time too, so your 'new' phone might be totally different to your old one. Same with the tv ....

If you discover any different methods, please let us know using the enquiry form. Happy to get back to you if you have any issues too. We want it to work, and the more feedback and information the better.

This info from Keith Taylor ..... April 2023

"Did some more Screen-Mirroring with Hands on TV, this time using a more modern and better specced Samsung S6 Lite 2022. MUCH better lip synching & no messages this time about connection quality. Indeed, I would call it Cast Quality. Which given that the S6 has double the memory (4GB rather than 2) of the Tab A 10.1 2019 that I was using last time is probably to be expected. But, yes, it looks screen mirroring works much better with a more modern Tablet."

HandsOnTV  - the home of acoustic and folk music online, and onscreen.