Introducing Google Cast for audio • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing Google Cast for audio

#121

Post by iheart2code » Mon, Jan 05, 2015, 9:41 PM UTC

andybak wrote: post #60

drdaeman wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, UPnP has media renderers, servers and control software as three separate matters. This is already a solved problem. And, well, I had controlled mpd running on my desktop machine (that has the speakers connected) and streaming from my NAS from my N900, like, 5 years ago. Replace desktop with something like rPI and the tech is here.

Can a UPnP renderer pull audio from a cloud service requiring login and authentication? Genuine question.

Some cloud services get around this by accepting a single-use auth token in the URL for the media file/stream.

Re: Introducing Google Cast for audio

#122

Post by nobodyshere » Mon, Jan 05, 2015, 9:45 PM UTC

StringyBob wrote: post #112

Any support for multi-room audio? (or multiple remote speakers?) Sonos seem to be the only ones with a handle on this, and even then it's not particularly low latency...

iTunes does that with AirPorts

Re: Introducing Google Cast for audio

#123

Post by nobodyshere » Mon, Jan 05, 2015, 9:46 PM UTC

ultrafez wrote: post #26

acgourley wrote: post #19

Note the lack of spotify support. It's turning into a bit of a showdown between players like google cast and spotify connect. There will definitely be a small market in building devices which can serve as bridges between the standards.

It's disappointing that we are in the situation where we have several competing protocols for streaming audio - Google Cast, AirPlay, Spotify Connect, UPnP/DLNA. As a society we are capable of making software and hardware that interoperate among manufacturers - email and HTTP are good examples. We could be a far more technologically advanced world if capitalism didn't encourage companies to create competing closed-so…

Spotify still works through AirPlay though.

Re: Introducing Google Cast for audio

#124

Post by therealmarv » Mon, Jan 05, 2015, 9:50 PM UTC

Bluetooth speakers: Unbelievable but they also stream sound which is only locally on mobile phone. Why do all Googlers think that everybody in the whole world has good wifi everywhere?

Re: Introducing Google Cast for audio

#125

Post by thechut » Mon, Jan 05, 2015, 9:54 PM UTC

Why is there not a dongle for this. This should have been the first step and part of the announcement.

Re: Introducing Google Cast for audio

#126

Post by Zigurd » Mon, Jan 05, 2015, 9:59 PM UTC

mankyd wrote: post #4

> Google Cast Ready speakers come with Cast technology built-in, so you don’t have to buy any additional equipment. Except for, you know, the entirely new speaker(s). I love this idea, but I want a simple, small dongle, like the chromecast, that outputs audio only rather than HDMI. I already have a speaker/amp in my living room that has a mini-stereo in. I simply want a way to connect a chromecast to it.

Any Bluetooth audio adapter will do, and it will do for iOS devices, too. Unless you want a longer tether than Bluetooth allows there is no advantage to "casting."

Perhaps if one could cast to multiple Chomecasts...

Re: Introducing Google Cast for audio

#127

Post by jluxenberg » Mon, Jan 05, 2015, 10:10 PM UTC

jdboyd wrote: post #81

jluxenberg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use this HDMI audio extractor to turn a Chromecast into what you describe: http://www.amazon.com/J-Tech-Digital-Premium-Extractor-Conve...

Do you have to connect the HDMI out to anything for that to work?

No, no need to connect HDMI out to anything. I just connect the optical out to my receiver.

Re: Introducing Google Cast for audio

#128

Post by dtx » Mon, Jan 05, 2015, 10:13 PM UTC

No Spotify? Wow. I don't even recognize half the music services it supports. As someone else said on this thread, I am happy with 320kbps music streaming on Spotify + it's remote control features + the recent hardware support for Spotify Connect.

Re: Introducing Google Cast for audio

#129

Post by bitskits » Mon, Jan 05, 2015, 10:28 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #89

drdaeman wrote: post #12

"Google Cast is designed to give you more freedom while listening to music." I sense some irony in this statement.

It almost makes AirPlay open by comparison. At least that lets you stream your local music collection rather than restricting you to approved cloud music services.

Google Play Music supports this. Upload your audio files; stream from anywhere. No subscription needed.

Re: Introducing Google Cast for audio

#130

Post by mattmcknight » Mon, Jan 05, 2015, 10:31 PM UTC

Sargos wrote: post #120

taternuts wrote: post #109

>"Google Cast streams your music directly from the cloud instead of from your phone, so you won’t lose any sound quality." Huh??? This is almost _never_ the case in my opinion, especially when using popular cloud services for music playback. Pretty sure I just had to nerf a high quality .WAV file to a .WMV 20 minutes ago before I could even upload it to google music.

.wav is not a music format. It's meant for pure sound clips and doesn't even have the capability of adding metadata like artist and song name. If you care about sound quality then just use FLAC. The streaming quality from Google Music is top notch, it just seems that you had a problem getting the music into the service due to an antiquated format.

The problem is with this part of the statement: "Google Cast Ready speakers pull content directly from the cloud, so you’ll get the best audio quality" Pulling content from the cloud doesn't not mean you'll get "the best" audio quality.