Rant #3,536: What I Want

I personally have a love-hate relationship with modern technology.

When it works the way it is supposed to work, I love it.

When it doesn't work or doesn't do what I want it to do, I hate it with a passion.

And I have to say, when I have a problem with modern technology, and I refuse to back down, and stubbornly believe that the problem I have can be fixed, and then I fix it, I have to give myself a pat on the back.

And that is what just happened to me and a problem i was having with my family's living room television.

Since our television provider dropped the AXS network, for whatever reason, we have been scrambling to be able to watch TNA Wrestling each week.

My son loves pro wrestling, and I have watched TNA Wrestling for years with him every Thursday night.

But without access to the AXS channel--a very good channel on its own with several shows I liked--we have been up the creek without a paddle when we wanted to watch TNA wrestling.

We were forced to download its app, and pay each month to watch the show on YouTube.

Recently, TNA Wrestling dropped that option, so we had to join up again, at an elevated level and price, and view the weekly show directly through the app.

I thought it would be easier to download the app directly to the television and watch the show through the app on the TV, but without going into too much detail, the model we have is one of those smart TVs that unbeknownst to me, doesn't allow for the download of apps through third-party providers.

I watched every tutorial that I could find, and the end result is that not only can't you download the TNA app on this TV, you can't download any app that isn't already provided.

You can watch content on the multitude of apps that are provided, but if the app you want is not among those apps, you are out of luck.

Before I learned about this, I was sure I was doing something wrong, but I wasn't ... it simply doesn't accept certain third-party apps.

I was frustrated during the past two or three weeks, but I still wanted to watch this show through the TV, and not through our phone or tablet.

In the meantime, I did find a way to watch the show on the TV, by watching it through the Internet connection on the TV, but the picture kept freezing, making it a chore to watch.

I figured the next step would be to try to cast the show onto the TV through the phone, but even though i watched several tutorials on doing this a certain way, it always defaulted to the actual Chromecast unit on our TV in the master bedroom, so that did not solve the problem at all.

I felt that there had to be a way to successfully cast the show on the proper TV, but I could not find a way to do it 

Then on Sunday afternoon, I got an idea, what turned out to be the solution to this problem.

"Mirroring" is very similar to casting, as when you mirror on the TV, you are pretty much melding your cellphone to the TV and making them one.

You are taking what is on the screen of your phone and replicating that image to the television screen.

"Casting" also hooks your phone to the TV, but it gives you freedom to continue to use your phone once the cast is successful.

When you "mirror" your phone to the TV, whatever is on your phone screen is what you will have on your TV screen, so there is no flexibility to use your phone while the TV is mirroring it.

Anyway, I looked up how to mirror my phone screen to the television, and it appears that most smart TVs have this function already built in.

I found it on the TV, followed the instructions, and VOILA,! it worked!

So when I mirror my phone to the TV, anything on the screen of the phone is on the screen of the TV.

I just go to the TNA app, and whatever I click on that app--or any app on my phone, for that matter--can be seamlessly watched on the TV.

One word of warning: I believe you can only mirror your phone in this way if it is an android phone, not an iPhone. I could be wrong about this, but I think you need an android phone, at least to do it the way I did it.

For someone who has a bit of a middling knowledge of new technology, I am kind of proud of myself for finally figuring this all out.

It is a neat way to watch your phone apps--or anything else--on your TV, and it makes everything just so much fun--

Which is what the use of  modern technology should be to begin with.

Maybe everyone knew how to fo this, but I didn't, and I am happy I stuck with it and didn't give up.

Anyone out there have a similar experience with modern technology?