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Moments in Chromecast's history

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Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#351

Post by jauntywundrkind »

rickdeckard wrote: post #4

well, they no longer produce the "display-only" Chromecast in favor of their "Google TV" sticks with Remote etc. Not that much of a shock here, the market moved on from simple wireless display dongles. Unfortunately no sign of Google Cast protocol being opened for general purpose use. Would be great to be able to run your own custom Receiver-device without needing a Google certificate...

> Unfortunately no sign of Google Cast protocol being opened for general purpose use.

Open Screen Protocol exists and is very similar. It works and you can use it today (via the one and only reference implementation in the Chromium source tree)!

It's even pretty good & makes sense!

This was kind of part of the bargain for adding Presentation API to the web back in 2014/2015. Your site can itself trigger Chromecast! If that's true, then it seemed clear there should be a standardized way to talk to devices too, otherwise this wasn't really much of a standard. The same front-side/back-side happened with Web Push API for web sites which lead to the creation of a Web Push Protocol backend for actually sending push messages to the browser. It's not perfect but so far the web has somewhat stayed honest with APIs for the page having implementable backend protocols too. Presentation API sample (which oddly cant find my Chromecasts?): https://googlechrome.github.io/samples/presentation-api/

I really really wish there was some hardware support for this! I've been meaning to set it up locally & start using it some. Writing a native client seems not too absurdly hard.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#352

Post by dzikimarian »

timgilbert wrote: post #300
morkalork wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aww man, this sucks. I had mine connected to a google photos album. I loved that feature.

You can either have it display from a Google Photos photo album, and get the version of the interface which constantly displays ads to you, or you can switch the interface to "apps only" mode which will only show you one big ad on the home screen. In "apps only" mode, the thing won't display your photos, either as a screensaver or anything else. You still need to be logged into your Google account, of course; as far…

Is there different version for EU? I see either list of apps and bunch of shows from streamings that I have (home view) or just basically play store, with installed apps on top.

None contains ads. If I leave it alone it will switch to Screensaver in a few minutes. Photos in my case. Bit sad they have hidden 3rd party screens savers, which were better, but there definitely isn't anything I can call "constant ads".

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#353

Post by colonwqbang »

vermarish wrote: post #337

It sounds like Google wants to get more edge compute in people's homes so they have a new vector to deploy AI products on, but they're still so far from actually deploying an innovative product that they can't announce anything to actually drive up hype. Then, the rebranding is only because they've abandoned the original "minimal footprint" ethos of ChromeCast.

This is the least suitable market for AI that I can think of. People love writing summaries for TV shows and movies. They do it for free. Why not focus on making AI do jobs that humans don't like.

I also don't think people actually long for having the machine recommend new movies and shows. At least I get enough of that from my human friends and family. ("Have you seen game of thrones? You have to watch game of thrones")

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#354

Post by westurner »

solardev wrote: post #90
swamp_donkey wrote: post #19

Is there any substitute for chrome cast audio? I love being able to play in sync audio to the group of receivers I choose throughout the property, using any amplifier. I’m not even using the digital optical input and I love them

I think Sonos sued the heck out of Google for those, and it caused those devices to disappear for a few years. Sonos lost that case late last year though, so hopefully we'll see a resurgence? https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/google-wins-repriev... Otherwise, you can DIY it with a bunch of old devices or Raspberry Pis and https://github.com/geekuillaume/soundsync

I am fairly certain that the academic open source community had already published prior art for delay correction and volume control of speaker groups (which are obvious problems when you add multiple speakers to a system with transmission delay). IIRC there was a microsoft research blog post with a list of open source references for distributed audio from prior to 2006 for certain. (Which further invalidates the patent claims in question).

Before they locked Chromecast protocol down, it was easy to push audio from a linux pulseaudio sound server to Chromecast device(s).

The patchbay interface in soundsync looks neat. Also patch bay interfaces: BespokeSynth, HoustonPatchBay, RaySession, patchance, org.pipewire.helvum (GTK), easyeffects (GTK4 + GStreamer), https://github.com/BespokeSynth/BespokeSynth/issues/1614#iss...

pipewire handles audio and video streams. soundsync with video would be cool too.

FWIU Matter Casting is an open protocol which device vendors could implement.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#356

Post by andrepd »

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…

Why would they give you a 25$ device to stream video to your TV when they can sell you a shitty subscription to a shitty service for that amount every month, plus whatever they earn from plastering the whole thing with ads?

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#357

Post by adrianmonk »

lxgr wrote: post #60
rickdeckard wrote: post #4

well, they no longer produce the "display-only" Chromecast in favor of their "Google TV" sticks with Remote etc. Not that much of a shock here, the market moved on from simple wireless display dongles. Unfortunately no sign of Google Cast protocol being opened for general purpose use. Would be great to be able to run your own custom Receiver-device without needing a Google certificate...

> the market moved on from simple wireless display dongles. Has it? Then it must have left me behind somewhere. My Chromecast does 4K, Dolby Vision, runs Android TV, has a usable remote. What needs to change? There's no newer A/V standard available anyway! I literally couldn't think of anything else I'd want it to do. (Google could, of course, and it's somehow "AI", even though that probably just runs in the cloud an…

> runs Android TV, has a usable remote

You haven't been left behind. You've already made the transition.

In the old paradigm, the Chromecast was not the starting point for TV watching. Some other device, typically a smartphone, was. That's why the old Chromecasts did not include a remote control or have a home screen.

In the new paradigm, the Chromecast is the starting point. It has a remote. You can install apps on it, and it has a home screen to launch them from.

The first device of the new paradigm was still called a Chromecast, even though casting was no longer the core functionality. Now the brand is being made more consistent with what the devices in the new paradigm actually do.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#358

Post by unsui »

wpm wrote: post #341
everdrive wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit clunky, but the only real solution is just "a computer" with an old Logitech K400 keyboard + mouse combo. You won't be "casting," (although I suppose you still could) rather you'll just be using the keyboard directly. This is low tech but also sort of "bomb proof." A company can't sweep the rug out from under you, your setup will always work, and given that it's literally just a computer running whatever O…

The pro move is getting a K830, a far superior keyboard/trackpad combo with backlighting. Unfortunately, also with a very weak microUSB charging port. Logitech perfected, then discontinued the best HTPC keyboard ever.

2nd this.

Bought 2 of them since I "lost" the first one (then later found it), and now that it's been discontinued, one of my best backup purchases ever.

Daily driver for my 85" gaming TV/media center. Tried other couch keyboards, but always ended up coming back to this one.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#359

Post by cubefox »

buH39Pq4Ss wrote: post #298
aestetix wrote: post #8

So they are ending Chromecast, and also just launched the "Google TV Streamer" which seems to do the same thing, but "faster, more premium" whatever that means. Seems to be a reason to charge people more for the same thing but slap the AI label all over it. But that's just first impressions. Edit: and apparently the TV Streamer thing is twice the price of the Chromecast.

This seems like an unnecessarily cynical take. As a Chromecast user, both the price increase and the name change make sense to me. The current generation Chromecast (Chromecast with Google TV (4K)) was fast and responsive when it launched, but software updates have made it almost unusually laggy over time. Obviously the best solution here would be “just make the software fast again”, but not all the relevant software…

I wouldn't expect much performance difference here:

> Although the specifications for the MT8696 haven’t been published by MediaTek anywhere online, Amazon [which also used it in the past] says that the MT8696(T) variant of the chipset in the 2nd Gen model features a quad-core CPU clocked at up to 2.0GHz. The core design is ARM’s Cortex-A55

> The 2020 Chromecast with Google TV (4K) utilized Amlogic’s S905X3 SoC with four ARM Cortex-A55 cores clocked at up to 1.9GHz

Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41171393

So both use 4 x Cortex-A55. The alleged "22% faster CPU performance" does sound strange, as the maximum clock speed is merely ~5% higher. Though it does have more RAM (4 GB instead of 2 GB).

They could have used a more recent SoC instead of the Mediatek from 2021, which would have been more efficient, but also more expensive. Making it a box instead of a dongle could also be motivated by better audio recording ability (for AI assistants), perhaps.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#360

Post by andrepd »

everdrive wrote: post #309
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…

It's a bit clunky, but the only real solution is just "a computer" with an old Logitech K400 keyboard + mouse combo. You won't be "casting," (although I suppose you still could) rather you'll just be using the keyboard directly. This is low tech but also sort of "bomb proof." A company can't sweep the rug out from under you, your setup will always work, and given that it's literally just a computer running whatever O…

If you want to plug your laptop on the TV and control it from your sofa, take a look at KDE Connect. It works amazing
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