Getting an Amazon Firestick and putting Kodi on it is a great way to watch stuff locally if you have a NAS full of media Otherwise, look at getting an Intel Compute Stick. They are full PCs that plug into an HDMI port. Running VLC on these is a pretty good solution
Only Firestick has crap software and slow as hell.
The latest Firestick 4K Max is slow, full of ads, and locked down to where some of the more fun side-loading features don't work anymore like remote button remapping. I ditched it and got an Apple TV that doesn't force you to watch ads for Ford pickup trucks.
Google has a really horrible brand reputation though. Would be bizarre if someone at Google thought tacking "Google" on a product would improve the product's reputation.
Does it have a horrible brand reputation? The tech savy people complaining about the account review procedures are not the mainstream consumer.
Yes, I do think it does have a horrible rep for the layman.
To be fair, isn't any new TV in the market being sold with chromecast support?
My 2019 Philips android tv got incredibly slow after years of updates. I didn’t notice it because it was so incremental but after some years the chromecast functionality started failing consistently. I did a factory reset, disconnected from the internet and added a Google TV dongle. TV is super fast again. Point of the story: it’s very nice to be able to buy a $ 50-100 dongle every 5 years and keep your old tv.
This is exactly the approach I've taken. Current TV is 14 years old and survived numerous house moves. Still as good as new.
Most usage is via a Chromecast Ultra. I have a Chromecast 4K with TV (i.e. newer device) but it was a backwards step from an experience perspective (covered by others elsewhere).
I am taking a look at the Nvidia shield, which also uses the cast button. I have 3 Chromecasts that need to be replaced, but the cheapest Shield is $150!! I guess each time Google kills something and I remove one more part of my life from their ecosystem they are doing me the real favor.
Tivo Stream is $40 and works a treat - it's Android TV based https://www.tivo.com/products/stream-4k
Being only $40 I’m highly suspect that I’m the product, not the customer.
I have one of these and I am going to be blunt: I just can't figure out the privacy. At. All. I have kids (and their many friends) running through the house using TVs and streaming etc and I don't want them browsing through my YouTube viewing history or filling it up with their dumb kid shows nor accessing things I don't think are appropriate at random times. But for whatever reason when I plug in the 4K with Google…
Exactly! For the Chromecast at our cabin, the fact that people cast from their own phone is a feature . No shared logins between families staying there, no need to log in and out from some additional device.
Yup, I agree. They really should not have called this "with Google TV" thing a "Chromecast" in the first place. The earlier Chromecast devices were so simple and extremely pleasant to use. They did their thing extremely well. It really felt like a bait and switch when I unboxed this and plugged in. It doesn't even show up as a cast destination in YouTube when not logged in while every single Roku in the house is there and does what the old Chromecasts used to do. To be fair a remote for pause and volume seemed like a natural addition, because that had been a bit clunky with the older Chromecasts when doing like family watching. I also really liked the Chromecast Audio while it worked. After this "with Google TV" thing Chromecast moved from one of my regular recommends to family etc to never being mentioned.
Part of it is how often do people buy TVs? I doubt if I've bought one in over 15 years.
A quick Google says that 40M televisions are sold in the US every year, into a market with 130M households. So... a whole lot more often than once every decade and half.
I assume a lot new "households" are created every year. Once a stable household is established it would surprise me a bit if TVs were regularly repurchased.
Tivo Stream is $40 and works a treat - it's Android TV based https://www.tivo.com/products/stream-4k
Being only $40 I’m highly suspect that I’m the product, not the customer.
They are hoping you will subscribe to their streaming service, but it works just fine without subscribing to theirs. It also aggregates multiple streaming services into a consolidated guide rather nicely.
Not as nice as Channels DVR (which also lets you record streams and will strip commercials), but one of the nicer streaming boxes for the money.
On the other hand, "Google TV Streamer" also describes Chromecasts and is immensely less memorable or distinctive. It'd be like if Apple decided to rebrand Macbook to be "Apple Laptop". Sure, it's accurate. It's also crap.
To be fair, "MacBook" is basically a portmanteau of "Macintosh Notebook", so it's really not that far removed from "Apple Laptop".
But the point is that they're giving up distinctive, widely-recognized branding for a bland, flavorless alternative