Early this morning on Google+, he showed off his latest project, which will allow any audio or video file to be casted to your TV using a CyanogenMod-powered device and the Chromecast dongle. In his demo above he shows it off using the Twit.TV app, but he explains that the process should be the same for any media you can play through any app.
This is exactly what I want out of the Chromecast.
I have a Sony smp n200 that I paid about $50 for, brand new. Does Amazon, Netflix, Youtube, plus about 30 other services, and plays every video I throw at it from a USB stick. And rather than having to drag out a phone or tablet to control it, it came with this handy little thing called a remote control
I really don’t see what the big deal is about Chromecast. If I had a laptop close enough so that mirroring a chrome tab was actually convenient, I’d just plug in an HDMI cable and be done with.
I think Chromecast devices take the friction away from streaming to a TV, which (in addition to their low cost) the main selling point.
Fierce reduction of complexity is what should be taken note of here, not the functionality provided, and other functionally equivalent (But practically more complicated) alternatives are irrelevant.
Plus, in my experience plugging an HDMI cable is freaking annoying. I want to be able to use my laptop on the couch while I stream a video to the living room TV.
Really? How hard is turning on a Roku-like device and pointing it to your wifi router? Same thing you’re gonna do on the Chromecast. With services like Amazon and Netflix, you can already queue up videos in a browser and then watch them on the device; nothing special about Chromecast in that regard.
I saw where the CM dev is trying to make it work with every app on the device – now THAT would be cool
Still wouldn’t have Amazon video, so since I’m a Prime subscriber (mostly for the free shipping with the free streaming being an added bonus), it’s never gonna replace a set-top box.
WTF?
“Rather than having to Drag out my Phone or Tablet…” are you kidding me? The phone or tablet is WAY better media navigation device than a remote and UI of a box.
I wouldn’t say WAY better.
The annoying thing about pulling out a phone or tablet is dealing with the touchscreen.
You are limited by:
1) Waking up the touchscreen all the time for things like scrubbing back and forth as well as pausing and volume control.
2) You can’t use a phone or tablet like a traditional remote. Meaning, you can’t operate the remote without looking at it. Touchscreens can’t replace that textile feeling where your volume and skip buttons are.
3) Battery life of your tablet and phone will be in question. I know because I use my phone all the time and it annoys me as a remote.
the big deal is you can play stuff from chrome to the tv.
But you can’t display what’s showing on your tablet/phone on the TV.
It’s a shame the Chromecast doesn’t support Miracast. If it did, it would be a bonafide AppleTV competitor.
It’s Google’s answer to every 25$ Asian Android TV device. They felt threatened.
I’m afraid I may have to buy one of these before the prices start going up. Push streaming is a very nice feature that takes care of a bit of grief I have. One of my tablets has tons of kids videos on it to keep the rug rats busy at very necessary times.
I don’t think the price will go up.
no worries it seems my wife ordered it for me. hehe.
Combine this with a bluetooth controller like a Dualshock 3 and any Cyanogenmod device now becomes a full fledged TV gaming console. Emulators in particular would be neato.
Not quite. If it’s anything like miracast, the lag will kill it.
Sorry, but there is no way that chip is powerful enough to seamlessly decode Hi10P 720P h.264.
A USB+HDMI XBMC card is extremely desirable, but current non-x86_64 hardware can not play anime with the latest scene standards.
chromecast isn’t decoding of the source video at all
No, but it is expected that an android device is, and none of them can play Hi10P.
I didn’t realise it could be done through a laptop with chrome on it, though. That is very cool.
Chromecast support H.264 High Profile 4.1, 4.2 and 5. What is needed for Hi10P?
Hi10P is 10-bit encoding. It results in smaller file sizes and better continuous regions of the same colour. It’s pretty much exclusively used for anime.
So I buy this $35 device… then I need to go and buy a couple hundred dollar tablet. Doesn’t make any sense.
You can use chromecast with a laptop. Just download the chromecast extension for chrome.
I don’t run Windows on my laptop and even if I did I don’t want to use it for that.
I don’t run Windows on my laptop and even if I did I don’t want to use it for that. [/q]
The Chromecast plugin doesn’t require Windows. It will work on OSX and on a Chromebook Pixel.
That still doesn’t help.
Works fine from Chrome on my Ubuntu laptop too.
It sadly requires the use of Chrome, though.
The chromecast is not for you then. Not every product has to be for everyone.
The plugin seems to be available for linux in the chrome webstore. I’ve read reports that it works, but dont have a chromecast to try it.
You’re only right about the last part. What you said doesn’t make sense.
It makes perfect sense. Its a device that requires another device to stream content to it.. so I then need something to stream stuff to it. That’s so hard to understand?
I disagree. I think what you said doesn’t make sense. And if you think it does, you can’t be helped. Good day to you