Steam Link on Sale, worth it?

[Pyrometheous]

So, through Monday, the steam link is 60% off. I wanted to know if anyone here has used one with BigBox remotely, and if you can use an XBOX 360 controller with it. Is steam link worthwhile? I was very hesitant about it for $50, but I'm a little tempted at $20.

 

EDIT Can I use Plex Media Player on Steam Link? To remotely stream DTS HDMA and Dolby TrueHD sound?

EDIT 2 and since I'm thinking about this more and more. I was wondering if TriDef Ignition and NVIDIA 3DTV Play could send the signals out to the Steam Link to play games in stereo3D on my TV in the livingroom.

Edited May 12, 2017 by Pyrometheous

[DOS76]

I personally don't own a Steamlink but from what I've seen they seem to be a good value for $20. There are a few members of the community who do use them and hopefully they can chime in and give you some 1st hand advice

As to Plex if you can add it to Steam as a nonSteam game then I would think that you can use it from the SteamLink.

[Zombeaver]

I've got one and I like it quite a bit. I do use it to stream Big Box to it. In fact, that's the primary thing I bought it for. I use it with a wireless 360 controller. You add Big Box as a non-steam application in Steam - when you start streaming, it puts you in Steam "Big Picture", you start Big Box from there and navigate/start games as normal. When you exit the emulator it drops you back to Big Box and when you exit Big Box it drops you back to Big Picture. There are quirks though, and it'll take some testing and tweaking and fiddling to get everything working for the purposes of using emulators with it. It's doable though. If you have more than one computer available in your house, I recommend testing Steam In-Home streaming first, because it's functionally identical to the Steam Link, it's just that you're streaming from one computer to another rather than one computer to a small box (Steam Link). That'll give you a really good idea of how it will work, and should be able to help you make your decision.

As far as Plex, you should be able to do that - you could add Plex Home Theater as a non-steam application and stream it. I don't think you'll be getting DTS or TrueHD though - I think they were working on implementing some surround support a while back but I'm not sure what all is available. Personally, I just use either my PS4 or Chromecast for Plex streaming.

I have no idea on the 3D stuff.

[Pyrometheous]

24 minutes ago, Zombeaver said:

I've got one and I like it quite a bit. I do use it to stream Big Box to it. In fact, that's the primary thing I bought it for. I use it with a wireless 360 controller. You add Big Box as a non-steam application in Steam - when you start streaming, it puts you in Steam "Big Picture", you start Big Box from there and navigate/start games as normal. When you exit the emulator it drops you back to Big Box and when you exit Big Box it drops you back to Big Picture. There are quirks though, and it'll take some testing and tweaking and fiddling to get everything working for the purposes of using emulators with it. It's doable though. If you have more than one computer available in your house, I recommend testing Steam In-Home streaming first, because it's functionally identical to the Steam Link, it's just that you're streaming from one computer to another rather than one computer to a small box (Steam Link). That'll give you a really good idea of how it will work, and should be able to help you make your decision.

Good to know, I have a low powered laptop I can fool around with and see how well that works. Thank you for the advice on that one.

25 minutes ago, Zombeaver said:

As far as Plex, you should be able to do that - you could add Plex Home Theater as a non-steam application and stream it. I don't think you'll be getting DTS or TrueHD though - I think they were working on implementing some surround support a while back but I'm not sure what all is available. Personally, I just use either my PS4 or Chromecast for Plex streaming.

I'm using a Roku 3 for Plex streaming right now, but it transcodes everything to DD, so it's compressed audio and no 7.1 support. But it works, I've planning an HTPC to resolve the audio issue and prevent needing to lug my PC back and forth from the living room for emulation and PC games, I was trying to be optimistic about potentially being able to stream 7.1 audio from plex to a Steam Link. But that does have me wondering if the Steam Link supports multichannel audio for gaming as well.

 

[Zombeaver]

3 minutes ago, Pyrometheous said:

But that does have me wondering if the Steam Link supports multichannel audio for gaming as well.

 

It looks like it does now, but like I said it's probably DD. It's a matter of bandwidth; and it's the same reason your Roku 3 is using it.

That's an old post, but they said they were working on 7.1 at the time. I haven't been keeping up with Link development nearly as much as I used to.

[Massatomic]

Thanks for the heads up on the sale, just bought one!