Miracast or More-aches - headaches that is

So I had previously tried to use Miracast to project from my Droid Maxx.  In summary, I finally got it to work switching to 2.5ghz on both devices but it was heavily pixelated and basically useless.  The requirement to switch to 2.5 from 5ghz seems really odd to me since people recommend using 5ghz for miracast for bandwidth reasons and since it sets up an Ad-Hoc network independent of your current WiFi, what difference should it make.  But it does - and ultimately I'm not even sure which frequency it is using - maybe it was using the 5ghz after I freed it up by switching Internet to 2.5.

Anyway, I recently needed a new (actually my first) blu-ray player, so I got the Panasonic DMP-BDT230.  It was on sale for about 80 bucks and it too supported Miracast.  I review it separately but figured I'd test it and at the same time try projecting from my first generation Surface Pro running windows 8.1.

Before starting, I made sure that all devices were up to date for drivers, firmware, etc.

The good news on  the droid front was it paired up quickly with the blueray player (also only on the 2.5ghz network) and didn't exhibit any of the pixilation problems the TV had.  Furthermore, it didn't screw up its network connection using it.  The DMP-BD230 also has a miracast button right on the remote to quickly launch it without diving into its settings.

The bad news was on the MS Surface side: I couldn't get it to pair with either the Panasonic VIera tv or the Blu-Ray player.  

• When connecting to the TV, as soon as I went to connect, Windows prompted me to enter the WPS pin of the TV. Well the TV doesn't have a WPS pin, at least not one I could find in the manual or on the Internet.
• When connecting to the BluRay player, Windows would either prompt me to press the WPS button on the bluray player (it doesn't have one), or just time out trying to connect.

Whose fault is it - Panasonic or Microsofts?  Well since Miracast sets up an ad-hoc network, which in turn is probably using something like WPS, I might point the finger at Panasonic for not having the option to supply a PIN code.  Of course on the flip side, my Droid will pair without a PIN so perhaps Microsoft is at fault for requiring one before you can click next.  I know people have successfully paired the Surface with Netgear's Push2TV (PVT3000), but I also know when they do the Netgear shows a PIN they can enter.  I also know people have had trouble with Sony TVs becase they don't have a PIN.  For know I'll blame both - Panasonic because even with it working on the Droid, its flaky from the TV and seems dependent on which frequency Wifi I was previously connected to from both, and Microsoft because it just doesn't work where the Android device did.

Everything I've read seems to indicate Miracast is supposed to be about as simply as it gets - but so far, my Miracast experience has been anything but easy.

Android Miracast on Panasonic P55VT60

So I love my Panasonic 55" plasma - built in Netflix, VUDU, Amazon Prime, Skype, good picture quality.  What is a little underwhelming is the Panasonic Android Tv Remote2 application.  Sure it works, but it cant power on the TV, and touch screen remotes cant replace (IMHO) tactile feedback of a traditional remote where you don't have to look at the remote to know what button you are pressing. 

What does work in the app is the content sharing - from within the application, flip a picture, audio file, or movie up to the screen and voila - there it is from your phone to the TV. (I've read that video sharing doesn't work with the Apple app - but it works well for my Android devices). 

Well, my new Droid Maxx supports Miracast - the "standard" ad-hoc wifi method of streaming HDMI-quality content.  So I poked around in the apps of the TV and there was Display Mirroring so I figured I'd give it a try.  Seems easy enough -

• Select that on the TV - The TV then indicated it was waiting for a connection
• go into Settings->Display-Display Mirroring on Droid, turn it on (you can short cut to here from the Motorola circles widget if you have a Droid, or from the settings drop down) - Turn it on and it saw the TV
• Select the TV on the droid, and on the screen of the television it prompts if I wanted to allow the connection.   Hit yes and..... nothing but spinning wait circles on both.

I repeated the above steps countless times, and would only get either spinning circles, or sometimes the phone would think it was mirroring, but the TV would say disconnected.

After banging my head for 30 minutes on this, I disconnected both devices from my 5g WiFi network and connected them to my 2.5ghz network.  Repeated the above steps and what eureka! it worked!. Sort of.

The problems were:

1. The number of steps it took to get it to go meant it was a 2 minute process to connect the phone (including the pairing time, searching time by the droid while it looked for wireless displays etc)
2. The Television didn't mute the prior input (coming from my AV receiver), even when I streamed video or audio from the phone so I had to turn off the receiver or switch the TV to an unused input as yet another step.
3. There was severe pixilation.  I tried Angry birds and a short movie I had recorded on the phone - both were basically unwatchable with any fast movement.
4. And the biggest problem, after disconnecting the droid, the Panasonic refused to connect back to my network (it seemed to get stuck in the ad-hoc world and wouldn't see any wifi networks.).  Ultimately, I had to power off the Droid (even though the display mirroring was turned off on both), and reconfigure the network on the TV.  Another 3 minutes of time.

I'm not sure who is at fault here - I'm leaning toward Panasonic's implementation of the Miracast not being up to snuff.   While I am running the latest firmware on the TV, it still seems buggy at best - particularly the mess it made of the WiFi connection and the audio overlay.   I suspect if they would pair at 5g, the pixilation problem would go away. 

All in all, the setup time and disconnect time, and general flakiness was completely unacceptable.  I suppose if I had to do a presentation of some static/slow moving screen on the android device (not video/music/photo files but actual applications or see the home screen etc,) it would suffice - since there is no way to do that from within Panasonic TV remote application, but for general media content  I will stick with the Panasonic Remote Application.  It did not exhibit any pixilation on video files.  As for something like Angry Birds? I'll stick to just looking at the phone's screen.