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Moments in Chromecast's history

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Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#501

Post by leptons »

plantain wrote: post #82

Chromecast was an endless source of frustration for me from having the first prototypes while at Google, to the latest devices. It solves such a simple problem that no one else seemed to want to tackle - put a video on the TV - and yet, it never quite worked reliably. We used it every evening for years and 19/20 times it streams effortlessly and instantly... 1/20 times I'm restarting browsers, TV's, WiFi until we giv…

We have 5 Chromecasts with Android TV and they all work perfectly. We really only use Plex, Youtube, Netflix and a few other streaming apps, but none of them has any problems. It sounds like your problems with Chromecast are due to the rest of your network infrastructure and not the Chromecast.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#502

Post by dylan604 »

eric-hu wrote: post #462
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roku sells dongles at the same price point, without many other services with which to subsidize the hardware. I am sure Roku monetizes the users in the same ways as Google can, so I do not understand how Google cannot make a profit from them.

> Google cannot make a profit from them *enough profit Remember that Google has sunset many products because those profits pale in comparison to search and advertising.

How does search make them money? They are paying everyone to be their default search. Isn't search just an input of data to push ads based on the search as well as taking the user with more metrics based on the search query?

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#503

Post by oezi »

cheald wrote: post #465
kentonv wrote: post #324

This makes me so sad. The old Chromecast experience -- choose media on phone, play on TV -- is all I ever wanted. I hate using a remote to browse -- my phone is much better. I hate having my TV logged into an account -- my family, kids, guests all use the same TV and I don't want them using my account, nor do I want to see their account when I'm using it. The Chromecast protocol is the only thing that the entire ecos…

The absolutely killer feature of the Chromecast is that I can have guests over (or be visiting someone), and anyone can stream any content they're authorized for. Movies I've bought can be watched anywhere there's a Chromecast; my buddy can come over and we can watch something together with his Paramount+ subscription. Keeping the accounts and authorization linked to personal devices, and letting the Chromecast essen…

Absolutely +1!

I love Chromecast on vacations for the same reason: I can continue using my subscriptions without logging my account into the hosts TV.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#504

Post by piperswe »

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.

Give, not sell. They (and I, and many others) received that box for free as part of a promo.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#505

Post by boredumb »

I've used chromecast to power all my "dumb" tvs for years and being able to use my laptop or any phone that's on the wifi has been amazing to avoid using a clunky roko or firetv interface. Sad to see one of the most personally useful pieces of google tech ending.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#506

Post by leptons »

Ekaros wrote: post #369
nyxtom wrote: post #355

Chromecast is a household name, what a weird thing to kill that off

Makes perfect sense in Google's company culture. Reinvent the wheel and plaster your own name on it to get the promotion...

The people at Google that thought killing Chromecast and replacing it with a $100 device certainly do not have the consumer in mind. This is entirely a political play within the company.

They said they sold 100 million Chromecasts, but do 100 million houses really have (or need, or want) home automation? I seriously doubt it.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#507

Post by leptons »

aidenn0 wrote: post #388

Good riddance. I tried a "Chromecast with Google TV" because it was so cheap, and seemed to support everything. It was easily the worst experience I've had with a set-top-box: 1. Sometimes it took 2-3 minutes to wakeup from the sleep state. 2. The remote is so curved on the bottom (literally a semi-circle) that I struggled to pick it up and the only ways to reliably pick it up successfully resulted in inadvertent but…

We have 5 Chromecasts with Android Tv around the house, and we don't have any of the problems you describe - no 2-3 minute wake-up, it's pretty much instant on all of them. No ads, we use "apps only mode". The remote is just fine, your hands may be the problem. Media playback never crashes.

That said, I'm not paying $100 for the same experience I recently paid $30 for. I'm going to test on the Onn 4k streaming device for $20.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#508

Post by dylan604 »

kardianos wrote: post #168

This is not the same thing. My Chromecast dedicated device would put a default nice picture, then wait for a cast. Google TV and this new device displays advertisements, store, and more. I hate it. It's the last google thing in my house. When it dies, google will be gone from my house.

> When it dies, google will be gone from my house.

In case you're looking, I have a friend with a set of special skills that can help with this. This friend is very discrete, and there will be nothing left that traces it back to you. It will look like natural causes. I think you can find an ad in the back of an issue of Solder of Fortune.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#509

Post by nottorp »

leptons wrote: post #483
nottorp wrote: post #460

I wonder how they'll fuck it up. I have one and I've never used the 'cast' feature. I only run the apps for the streaming services i watch plus VLC. Somehow I think this will be impossible in the new and improved version...

>I wonder how they'll fuck it up. They fucked up the price at $99. I have 5 Chromecast with Android TV around my house, I paid about $30 for each one. There's no way I'm going to buy 5 of these new devices at a $100 price.

Mmm I would complain about that but I've tried a generic noname Android box and that wasn't worth a single dime.
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