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Moments in Chromecast's history

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Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#561

Post by sahruum9 »

ianburrell wrote: post #512
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…

They aren't getting rid of the Chromecast streaming. Google TV does both Chromecast and the Android interface. The one difference is that Google TV runs the app for service if installed and streams with that. It is nice to use the remote when streaming instead of pulling out phone to pause or change volume.

And if you aren't logged in to that app on the Google TV, you aren't allowed to cast. It's incredibly annoying.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#562

Post by Macha »

mikestew wrote: post #236
catapart wrote: post #87

I'm suddenly reminded to ask this community whom I assume might know: Are there any good "dumb tv" solutions out there? I'm thinking 1-4 HDMI ports, and a maximum of RF tuning and input-switching on the firmware. Products would be preferred suggestions, but I'm even at the point of considering DIY solutions, if something looks lego-ish enough!

Bought an LG “C” series OLED a month or so ago. Never gave it a WiFi password. Everything (Apple TV, XBox, Switch) uses HDMI CEC, so I just turn on the desired device, inputs are switched and devices powered on. I never see the TV’s Home Screen, and it doesn’t complain about lack of network. The LG acts as “dumb” as the truly dumb TV it replaced.

I had my brother stay over a few months ago and he gave it the wifi password. Luckily it didn't update to a firmware version with ads (as their cheaper/older devices apparently do), but that's the risk with this approach.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#563

Post by dang »

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…

Emailers are telling me this is more of a rebrand so I've replaced the submitted title "Google is killing Chromecast" with the unfortunately press-releasey original.

If anyone suggests a better title (i.e. more accurate and neutral, preferably using representative language from the article), we can change it again.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#565

Post by KTibow »

progforlyfe wrote: post #372
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…

remember this is Google -- don't worry, they'll be changing the name again in 2-3 years. Probably YouTubeCast or YouTube TV (yes they already have a "YouTube TV" but I wouldn't put it past them to combine/confuse the two things like they've done with Google Pay / GPay / Google Wallet / etc)

Could be YouTube Stream

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#566

Post by [deleted] »

oldkinglog wrote: post #265
kylecazar wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your second paragraph for a lot of reasons and product lines of theirs. But -- I decided a while ago to bite the bullet and go whole hog on using Google everything for my personal life (for better or worse). The decision was either to avoid them entirely or resign and buy into the ecosystem. I have a Pixel, my home uses Nest, I use their cloud storage personally, their AI, etc. FWIW it is a better experi…

> The decision was either to avoid them entirely or resign and buy into the ecosystem. An easy choice that you somehow managed to get wrong?

[deleted]

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#569

Post by kevincox »

mijoharas wrote: post #278
solarkraft wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: There was a guy who managed to extract the keys out of one of the earlier Chromecasts. He eventually stopped working on (or at least posting on XDA about) it because he was hired by Google. There isn’t really any decent open casting protocol with adoption. DLNA (UPnP) is pretty well implemented in proprietary devices (besides uncontrollable latency up to 10s on Samsung TVs), but there are neither decent fre…

miracast is open isn't it, and has reasonable adoption from smart-TVs? (I think everyone has their own slightly incompatible versions of it though.) [EDIT] I've just seen discussion on why it's not equivalent in response to this comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41171297

A nice feature of Chromecast is that the device was really just a remote control. After starting a show it would continue even if your phone caught fire. This is obviously great for battery life but also means that multiple people can control the media (works great for YouTube where multiple people can queue videos, play, pause, etc...)

I would love to see something like Chromecast but open.

1. MDNS to find the display. 2. Send a URL to display. 3. Devices can send messages (with some way to tell them appart for security reasons, probably require and explicit opt-in to receive messages from non-initiator devi

This is similar to the current protocol except step 2 is to send an app ID registered and approved by Google rather than an arbitrary URL. (Or some pre-made apps for things like playing a video from a URL or screen mirroring)

RIP Mozilla Matchstick

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#570

Post by OOPMan »

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.

I have Google TV on my Sony TV and found that I was able to disable the ads and crap.

There was a setting to toggle. They tried to make it unattractive by saying I wouldn't be able to use the Google Assistant feature but this just seemed like a win for me.

I don't need my TV to be fancy, it just needs to accept signal from my consoles and HTPC.

I do kinda miss seeing all the suggested dogshit movies sometimes tho XD

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