How do i get my girls on TV?

September 15, 2015 2:04 PM

How can i connect various gizmos/peripherals so my girls can watch themselves perform on TV?

I have 3 budding Pop Stars who love to hear themselves squeal like dying cats...er i mean sing like Mariah Carey. They also love to see themselves on any type of screen. I thought about getting a Karaoke machine but then i figured with the amount of gizmos laying about, surely i can rig something up?
We have:
One Ipad 2, one ipad 3 mini, one kindle fire hd. We also have an xbox 360 and a wii. I also have a webcam. We have 1 microphone and some headphones (wired and Bluetooth.). Our music setup is a sonos Connect:amp and a sonos play:1. I also have free standing speakers and an amp that is connected to a TV.
Having said that, is there anyway to rig any of this up so they can stand in front of the TV and watch themselves as they "perform". I can purchase any additional requirements (within reason)
Help me earn the undying admiration of my girls please!!

posted by ramix to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (4 answers total)

Best answer: If you have a computer and television manufactured within the last, oh maybe 5-6 years they almost certainly have hdmi ports. A 6 dollar cable from Amazon will turn your television into a big computer monitor, and that webcam of yours can make it all happen for them.

As an aside, as of several years ago at least there were some fun webcam toys on neave.com (I'm at work right now and probably shouldn't be granting permissions on a computer to see if they're still working) that can add neat after effects like snow and such and are dead simple to use, and may be a nice little toy for you guys.

This sounds like a blast, hope your girls have fun!
posted by phunniemee at 2:13 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

How about getting a copy of Just Dance 2015?

The game has the typical copy-the-dancers-on-screen stuff, but you can also sing along with on-screen lyrics while the camera records everything. You watch a playback at the end and (optionally) share it with others.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:31 PM on September 15, 2015

I believe they would absolutely love Singstar, and I'm sure you could pick up a PS3 and PS Eye camera along with all the PS3 Singstar discs for reasonably cheap these days. If you get an older PS3 that has backwards compatibility with PS2 games, there are a vast number of old Singstar discs in circulation for very cheap. The PS3 version gives you the choice of playing the music video on screen or the camera feed, which can then be shared if that is something you're OK with. (You can turn off the video sharing if you aren't)

Just make sure you set a budget for downloading new songs (assuming you even want to allow them to buy the downloadable songs), or they might go overboard. I know I did.
posted by wierdo at 2:34 PM on September 15, 2015

Chromecast! You can definitely wirelessly send the audio and video from your iPads to your TV with a Chromecast. The $30 investment is minimal and it is also nice to have for Netflix, etc. There are also roughly a million karaoke apps that you can add to the mix, if you want.

Disclaimer: I have not tried this myself and would recommend a little research to see what others have done if you don't want to risk $30 (it will certainly work, but I would be concerned that there would be delay in the audio that may be annoying or may be good enough, depending on your needs). Also, you'll need to make sure your mic works with your iPads.
posted by ssg at 3:23 PM on September 15, 2015