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Moments in Chromecast's history

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Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#251

Post by ravenstine »

Chromecast used to be a great product. I had my gen 1 Chromecast for the last 10 years until recently when it got fried by this piece of crap TV I plugged it into.

It was exactly what I want in a device: Do one thing and do it well.

I decided to replace it with a new "Chromecast" device to find out that it bears next to no resemblance to the original. Today's Chromecasts are just wannabe Roku devices with actual casting being relegated to the status of unwanted stepchild. It forces you to sign in to a Google account, which the original did not force you to do. The original was a small stick that could be powered by the USB coming from the TV itself, whereas the new one is a larger white puck that needs a wall wort and can't be powered by a regular (non-C) USB connection. My final disappointment was that VLC fails to cast to it, even though it worked perfectly with the original.

All I want is a way to cast any video I want to my TV. This is apparently a huge ask in 2024. I looked up alternative devices on Amazon and they all seem inferior or have deal breakers like trying to Do Everything(TM), not supporting 4K, using some weird protocol, requiring a login, etc.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#254

Post by RankingMember »

paxys wrote: post #206
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.

Probably true, but it's not like "Google TV Streamer" is any better.

Yeah that's just an awful name, could've just gone with a streamlined version of what they have, e.g. "Google Cast".

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#255

Post by lxgr »

jerf wrote: post #134
lxgr wrote: post #24

Wow, even for Google, this seems like an exceptionally well-liked and popular brand name and device to kill. The replacement ("Google TV streamer") seems to be a quite different device – most importantly, one that will be very visible next to a TV, and not out of sight behind it like its predecessor. For anyone not particularly interested in having "AI" in their streaming stick (and this being Google, surely that wil…

I have no idea why they think that "full summaries, reviews and season-by-season breakdowns of content" is even a feature worth mentioning. The going value of that on the current market is $0. Heck, at times it's negative, you have to go out of your way to avoid the info if you don't want it. And there is no way whatsoever that this is happening locally. A $100 device is not spontaneously ingesting video, running spe…

> A $100 device is not spontaneously ingesting video, running speech-to-text on it or advanced video analysis, and processing it all down to a summary for you.

You're clearly underestimating the 2021 SoC in it. It does 20 GFLOPS!

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#256

Post by HumblyTossed »

esafak wrote: post #160
jeffbee wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What difference does this announcement make to you? I am still using a 2013 Chromecast for some purposes. It does all the things it originally did, even though "support" for it ended a while back.

What if stops working tomorrow?

ebay another one?

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#257

Post by Zigurd »

ink_13 wrote: post #97
mbreese wrote: post #23

How much of this is an "end" to Chromecast and a rebranding of Chromecast to "Google TV Streamer"? It seems like the bare-bones experience of a Chromecast being tied to a phone (or browser) is getting replaced with an Apple TV like experience. If this is the case, it might be a (rare) example of a good branding shift from Google. I have had two Chromecasts (the original and an Ultra) and I feel like both were hampere…

The 4K Chromecast "with Google TV" basically was that already, since it has the full-screen menu-based interface and remote. It seems a bit silly to me that they're tossing the brand aside but maybe they're doing that for exactly this reason.

Chromecast is a terrible brand. It immediately confuses the customer. Why does my Chromecast not have Chrome on it? Who thought of that?

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#258

Post by m-p-3 »

Too bad, the Google TV Streamer seems to be targeting a higher price and performance (not gonna say no to that..), which the Chromecast did a decent job at a relatively low cost, and made some low-end "smart TV" usable with a quick drop-in replacement.

Hopefully they'll try to reach back that low-end market in some way.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#259

Post by hartator »

ravenstine wrote: post #251

Chromecast used to be a great product. I had my gen 1 Chromecast for the last 10 years until recently when it got fried by this piece of crap TV I plugged it into. It was exactly what I want in a device: Do one thing and do it well. I decided to replace it with a new "Chromecast" device to find out that it bears next to no resemblance to the original. Today's Chromecasts are just wannabe Roku devices with actual cast…

Can't have nice things indeed.

An alt: Apple AirPlay works super well even with Android tvs nowadays.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#260

Post by analista »

I think I am going to stock up some chromecasts with google tv 4K, reasons: - they are going to be lower price than before - which will make new streamer to be 3x price - they are losing the dongle feat which is amazing, zero footprint - smart home features, sorry, they are a scam - core functionalities are the same, 4k, dolby atmos/vision - its a streamer, don't need 32gb of rom - don't need AI, another scam

I honestly don't see the point on upgrading or even buying over prev. version

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