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Moments in Chromecast's history

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Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#281

Post by wtcactus »

I don't have a Chromecast, but I do have an Nvidia Shield for more than 5 years now. I use that a lot but in recent months is getting unreliable for some reason (I think it's lack of memory), apps get stuck and sometimes the apps crash (the OS remains fine, I just have to reopen them).

Still, from what I can see, it's the best device available barring Apple TV.

I've been searching around, but ready made there isn't anything that's better (on paper) and the DIY route, the only alternative I can see is LineageOS in the Banana PI. [1] AFAIK, that's not great because it doesn't have hardware acceleration, which for a device to do heavy media consumption in a 4K TV, is not an option.

I would be really happy to know about some better alternatives.

[1] https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/m5/

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#282

Post by vanshg »

softfalcon wrote: post #246
MetaWhirledPeas wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own the 4K Chromecast and it's pretty good. But in my opinion "Chromecast" was always a bad brand name. I guess it originated in the browser, but it's so far removed from that now; "Chrome" no longer makes sense.

Confused as to why "Google TV" didn't win out in the end. Seems like the obvious choice. Is it boring? Sure. Does it immediately tell you absolutely everything you likely need to know if you're not already buying an Apple TV? Yes.

Google TV is already the name of their software platform (based on the Android TV OS) that TVs run

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#283

Post by pgorczak »

ravenstine wrote: post #266
hartator wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't have nice things indeed. An alt: Apple AirPlay works super well even with Android tvs nowadays.

Isn't AirPlay only good for screen casting as opposed to casting videos directly? My conclusion was that it's not feasible to use AirPlay to cast a video at the full frame rate and sound synced.

You can cast video e.g. from the QuickTime app or a tag in the browser too which won’t just mirror your screen. In fact the cast video won’t even show on your device’s screen but only on the receiver in that case.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#284

Post by kbolino »

paxys wrote: post #223
Filligree wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have yet to meet the smart TV I didn't want to throw out the window.

Half the smart TVs out there have the exact same software as Chromecast to begin with, so not sure what everyone is complaining about.

I have a "smart" Samsung TV from 2015 and it definitely doesn't have Chromecast software, its hardware is too weak to handle modern streaming apps, and it stopped receiving updates from Samsung years ago anyway. The picture is still good, I've disconnected it from the network, and it has HDMI input, so there's no good reason to replace it yet. Friends have had problems with newer/smarter TVs so I'm still not seeing what's so great about baking the apps into the TV.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#285

Post by vzaliva »

I don't care much about Chromecast hardware, but I wonder if the protocol and application support for casting in apps will survive. I imagine third-party hardware vendors could step in to produce compatible devices.

Example use-case: I was recently in a hotel, travelling just with my phone. The hotel TV supported Chromecast, and I was able to connect my phone and watch some movies from Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, and YouTube apps. This was super convenient.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#286

Post by NobodyNada »

ravenstine wrote: post #266
hartator wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't have nice things indeed. An alt: Apple AirPlay works super well even with Android tvs nowadays.

Isn't AirPlay only good for screen casting as opposed to casting videos directly? My conclusion was that it's not feasible to use AirPlay to cast a video at the full frame rate and sound synced.

AirPlay can do both. There's a "screen mirroring" button in Control Center that streams your phone screen to the TV, but if you tap the AirPlay button on a video player or in the audio device selector, the TV will stream the video directly from the server at native resolution and FPS, without going through your phone (you can turn your phone off and playback will continue).

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#287

Post by gedy »

ricktdotorg wrote: post #227

was there ever any information (released by Google or other parties) as to why Google decided to remove the functionality to "Cast" *any* tab, and not a tab from a site that was whitelisted by Google? who pressured Google to do this? or did they "pressure themselves" to do it? the BEST feature of early Chromecasts was the ability to cast any video from any page. it was revelatory! and then that feature was silently r…

It's still there afaik (on desktop Chrome): View > Cast...

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#288

Post by anderber »

rescripting wrote: post #128
ViktorRay wrote: post #74

I got a free Chromecast ultra when I got a free Google Stadia box kit a few years ago. I didn’t use the Chromecast ultra much but I thought it was pretty neat. Kinda sad to see it go. Honestly the Google Stadia controller is probably the most comfortable and well designed controller I’ve used. I still have it and use it for PC gaming stuff. I don’t play video games much anymore so I don’t know if the other controller…

I find it funny that Google managed to sell you not one but two products in the same box that they unceremoniously discontinued. At least it looks like your Chromecast will continue to work for a while.

Technically, the controller can also be used as a Bluetooth controller.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#289

Post by GTP »

rendall wrote: post #280
GTP wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience was the opposite: my gen1 Chromecast's unreliable streaming is what made me get a Raspberry pi 3 :) IIRC the problem likely was the lack of support for 5Ghz WiFi combined with crowded channels in my area.

Would you mind expanding? How do you use it? Even a DIY link would be great!

You mean how do I use it for streaming? That changed over the years and I haven't been using it for streaming the last months due to circumstances. But if you are looking for suggestions, then I would point you to DietPi as OS and Kodi as media center. You can configure it to dierctly boot into Kodi, and if you use NewPipe as YouTube client on your smartphone, you also get a convenient option to play videos on Kodi. Plus you can stream any file you have on your PC or smartphone. To stream from Linux I used idok, but there could be others.
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