NEW YORK—Peacock will not allow users of its platform on personal computers or mobile devices to port the video to their TV monitors via HDMI.
The restriction represents yet another barrier to living room viewing of Peacock, which already lacks app support for the two biggest connected TV platforms, Roku and Amazon Fire TV.
“HDMI connectivity is not supported at this time,” Twitter handle operators for Peacock told a bereaved user last week. “Users will not be able to view via external monitor connection. They will need to use their PC, mobile or one of our other supported devices directly.”
The Peacock posting directed the user to this link, which lists the devices for which the Comcast and NBCUniversal streaming app, which launched nationally July 15, is supported.
Peacock is supported by both the Google and Apple software ecosystems. In addition to connected TV devices powered by Google’s Android TV OS, as well as Apple TV gadgets, Peacock can be watched on personal computers via the Google Chrome Browser, for instance. MacBook users can watch it in Chrome or Safari. And of course, users of Apple iOS and Google Android mobile devices can watch Peacock on their gadgets.
But Peacock users can’t hook up these PC and mobile devices to an external monitor via HDMI and watch Peacock. TV Technology's sister site Next|TV tried using a 2015 MacBook Pro and received the same error message as those legions of users complaining on Reddit did—a screen pops up on the external monitor featuring a sad-eyed kitten indicating, “something went wrong.”
Conversely, we hooked up our version 1.0 AirTV device, powered by Android TV and connected via HDMI to the same TCL 55-inch monitor, and we were able to watch “30 Rock” on Peacock just fine.
Interestingly, the lack of external monitor support seems confined to HDMI. Next|TV connected its 2020 MacBook Pro to a 19-inch monitor via USB Type C (Thunderbolt 3) to DVI cable. We were able to watch Peacock original NASCAR documentary “Lost Speedways” just fine on the external HP monitor.
Side note: The documentary was pretty disappointing: not much meat to the sandwich. Just Dale Earnhardt Jr. walking around an overgrown abandon speedway, making odd observations. Hoping for better luck with Peacock original “Brave New World.”
