Connecting to HDMI port in stateroom TV

[teralin]

I will be sailing on the Spectrum of the Seas very soon and would like to know whether anyone who has travelled on a newer ship has had any success in connecting a laptop to the stateroom TV via HDMI lead.  Does Royal Caribbean still disconnect the HDMI port on their TVs?

[Clarea]

The HDMI input may or may not be selectable with the supplied remote.

 

Some have good luck with a universal remote.  Others have found that tuning channel 3 selects the HDMI input.

[teralin]

Thanks, I will give it a try.

 

[twangster]

With the newer ships like Symphony and even Navigator after her refresh they use an onboard system that delivers all channels and their content over a network connection.  A universal remote does very little other than volume and channel up/down.  

 

I did find a work around but I'm a techie and am comfortable with playing.  I'd never provide this work around to my elderly parents, it wouldn't end well.

 

I found that disconnecting the network connection and then power cycling the TV by removing it's power cord wiped the restricted functionality.  Once the TV was powered up without a connection to the ship it acted more like a TV at home.  At that point I could use the ship remote to find a menu that allowed me to select the HDMI input.  However all ship functionality was lost and I had to repeat the process to restore the ship channels.  This meant unplugging the TV (not just turning it off) replacing the network connection and then connecting the power cord and turning it on.  

 

If you are comfortable and understand the gist of what I did, it may work on Spectrum as well.  We won't know if it uses the same platform as Symphony until she launches.

Edited April 15, 2019 by twangster

[teralin]

Thanks for that Twangster.  I followed the process but it worries me that I might not be able to restore it back to ship's functionality so I will probably pass and watch endless episodes of I Love Lucy 😐.  Thanks again.