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Google's Chromecast

MaggieD

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Does this really work? Says you just plug it into your TV's HDMI port, set it up, and it plays your computer, smartphone or tablet on TV.

https://www.google.com/intl/en/chro...tm_medium=ha&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=en

For $35, why wouldn't everyone have one?

Getting one myself soon.. but for 35 euros.. freaking overcharge. I have one "dumb" TV that I want to make smart, and this is cheaper than anything else.

Isn't this a way to avoid cable's $6-per-movie charge?
Or is there something I don't understand?

Yes and no.

What Chromecast does is take your dumb tv and make it into a smart tv or make your smart tv easier to use. Basically the idea is that you use your touch device to select what content you want to watch from the compatible sources and press play. Then Chromecast plays it directly from the source, and not over your device (which Apple does).

So say you have Netflix. Now Netflix on a tablet, or PC is far easier to navigate than with a TV remote. So choose what you want to watch and hit the Chromecast icon and wupti Netflix starts up on your tv and shows what you have chosen. On top of that your touch device also serves as a remote for that app.. so pause, stop and so on.

On top of that there is screen mirroring, so you can mirror your device (PC to tablet to phone) directly to the TV.

Now there are over 115 (as of 2 days ago) different apps/webpages that are compatible with Chromecast and the numbers are rising since it is a month ago that Google finally released the API and made it basically opensource. The amount of apps that were compatible with the device went from like 10 or so to over a 100 in a month and from what I understand it is pretty easy to implement the code in any website or app.

But you need a source that is compatible to stream from, or a media server with content in house to do it with. So getting rid of the 6 bucks per movie charge is not per say going to happen.. nothing comes for free.
 
I got one for Christmas and I love it. If you want to use it to watch videos on Hulu or Netflix, you have to have a Hulu/Netflix account. So you still pay for access to those shows, Chromecast just lets you watch them on a TV instead of a computer. Watching YouTube videos is free, of course.
 
We've been thinking about getting one of these as well. I'm going to keep an eye on this thread.
 
Does this really work? Says you just plug it into your TV's HDMI port, set it up, and it plays your computer, smartphone or tablet on TV.

https://www.google.com/intl/en/chro...tm_medium=ha&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=en

For $35, why wouldn't everyone have one? Isn't this a way to avoid cable's $6-per-movie charge?

Or is there something I don't understand?

I have my PC connected to my TV thru a USB/HDMI wireless connector.

Here are some choices... Wireless TV to PC


I believe with Chromecast you're limited to Youtube, Google, Hulu and Netflix? Unless you have a Chrome browser, then you can watch anything from your PC. Whereas, I can watch anything from my PC to my TV, on Firefox or Explorer.

Here are some reviews.. Chromecast Reviews

There are actually some free sources for movies if you hunt around.
 
I use a roku and the plex media server software. It works really but it does take some skills to set up efficiently
 
I have my PC connected to my TV thru a USB/HDMI wireless connector.

Here are some choices... Wireless TV to PC


I believe with Chromecast you're limited to Youtube, Google, Hulu and Netflix? Unless you have a Chrome browser, then you can watch anything from your PC. Whereas, I can watch anything from my PC to my TV, on Firefox or Explorer.

Here are some reviews.. Chromecast Reviews

There are actually some free sources for movies if you hunt around.

No you are not limited to Youtube, Google, Hulu and Netflix. You can also cast from any DLNA server via various apps. Plex is on there as well. There are also games.

I got mine today and playing with it to see how powerful it actually is. Now here in Spain we dont have Hulu or Netflix, but Youtube and Google Play works very nicely.. choose movie on tablet, PC or phone.. press cast to Chromecast and it starts up and you can use your device as a remote.

Next will be getting it to play local files from my media server. The problem here is figuring out which way I want to go heh, not if it can do it or not.

The differences between the various options are the following.

Apple TV: Locked bigtime in Apple universe. Very little cross platform support and limited video codex support. Works great if you are in the Apple cult and willing to buy expensive content in iTunes.

Roku: Powerful box, but semi closed system. Apps for mobile phones and tablets are available, plus the remote according to those that have used it be..interesting. Lack of browser mirroring was a deal breaker for me. Lots of apps and possibilities. Finally got Slingplayer .. about bloody time!.

Amazon Fire Streamer: Closed system, bound into Amazon content. Lots of potential, but still not open. Voice control is interesting, but in theory Chromecast can do that too.

Chromecast: Open system and cross platform (the biggest platforms only). Use Apple iPhone..you can use Chromecast.. Use your device to choose content and stream it directly to the Chromecast. Because it is open source for the most part, then more and more are adding the support to their apps or webpages. Plus browser mirroring works pretty well. CHEAP! :) Makes your dumb tv to a smart tv.

For me the price of Chromecast made it no brainer. Even if it does not work as I want, the potential is there so it might one day... the price of 35 dollars/euros (yes we get ripped off) is so cheap that it does not matter. I would have to actually think about it before investing in the other options because we are nearing the 100 dollar/120 Euro range.
 
I purchased a smart TV last year. It's a new 60 inch Panasonic plasma HDTV. It has an internet browser, a karaoke app, YouTube app, Netflix, Hulu, etc.

However, it does not support Flash video. And I don't think Panasonic is planning on updating the software to support Flash either.

My wife bought the Google Chromecast on a whim. It's only like 35 bucks. I had heard of it but I figured it wouldn't do anything that wasn't already built into the TV, so I thought it would be useless to us.

I was wrong.

A lot of websites use Flash video. The TV's internet browser is useless for that. With Chromecast we can send Flash videos or any other video format from a computer to the HDTV.

It performs great!
 
My brother bought the chromecast. It was a pain to set up. The computer he was on kept bringing up HP Setup and knocking off the wifi connection to the computer. I finally had him set to an earlier restore point and that got rid of the issue. After that it worked fine.

I wouldn't buy one myself. If you have an HDMI port on your PC/laptop and there's one on the TV, just get the HDMI cable and run it directly to the TV. That is my opinion.
 
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