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Moments in Chromecast's history

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Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#581

Post by lxgr »

ajross wrote: post #416
complaintdept wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I screencasted once to play with video feedback, but never seen a Chromecast device that plugs into a TV.

Right, because no one buys them anymore as the feature is baked into their televisions already. They were popular originally but don't have a home. If it's just the hardware device you're talking about, sure. It's obscure now, which is why it's being cancelled. What's frustrating in this thread is how many people are conflating the weird dongle product with the extremely successful streaming control protocol. Only th…

I believe this varies widely by region. In Europe, I've never seen a TV with built-in Google Cast support, but many do support Airplay.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#582

Post by lxgr »

ajross wrote: post #424
firesteelrain wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Vizio TV calls it SmartCast. I just Airplay to it. I didn't realize until I just googled it that Chromecast is basically Airplay for Android.

Other way around; Chromecast beat Airplay to market by like four years I think. But yes, they're very comparable technologies.

One important difference is that Airplay is much more of a screen or video mirroring protocol, while Google Cast is focused on the receiver driving presentation, with your mobile device only acting as a navigation source.

Practically, this means that you can take phone calls, hibernate your computer, kill a source app on your phone, leave the house entirely etc. with Chromecast without interrupting whatever's playing on a TV or stereo, while with Airplay, playback usually stops in these scenarios. Airplay is also a bigger battery drain as a result, in my experience.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#583

Post by mvdtnz »

pawelmurias wrote: post #141
davidmurdoch wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 it does.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#584

Post by DANmode »

dang wrote: post #563
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.

"Google is redefining Chromecast as Google Cast".

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#585

Post by ycombinatrix »

anytime5704 wrote: post #200
ghaff wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'd find that the vast majority of consumers have never heard of Chromecast.

I find that hard to believe... "Cast" is a pretty ubiquitous term and, anecdotally, Chromecast is almost always the device I find when traveling. Probably selection bias on my part, but I'd expect most people to be aware of Chromecast unless they're over the age of ~70 and fully Apple-oriented. Seems like throwing away a perfectly well known brand.

"cast" is a ubiquitous term because of chromecast

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#586

Post by BowBun »

wildzzz wrote: post #390
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #147

I had an original 2013 Chromecast plugged into my TV for ten years. It did its job admirably, until it started becoming more and more unstable and began rebooting randomly with each new OS version that Google pushed. I finally replaced it about a month ago with an onn streaming box from Walmart for about 20 bucks--less than I paid for the original Chromecast a decade ago: https://www.walmart.com/ip/onn-Google-TV-4K-S…

I used a Chromecast for years until we slowly replaced all of the TVs with ones that have Roku built in. Having a remote is definitely better than needing to pickup your phone, switch over to the streaming app, wait for it to link up with the Chromecast, and then pause the video. The OG Chromecast definitely made sense for the time. Video encoding hardware capable of 1080p playback wasn't that cheap so fitting a bunc…

> Having a remote is definitely better than needing to pickup your phone, switch over to the streaming app, wait for it to link up with the Chromecast, and then pause the video

I would always unlock my phone, and simply swipe down and use the media controls in the Android drawer, didn't really need all the steps in between. Heck, you should have been able to press play/next from your lock screen unless you blocked that specifically.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#587

Post by ycombinatrix »

pydry wrote: post #422
rickdeckard wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miracast is not content-aware, it's just a standard to stream a video over Wi-Fi, competing with Intel Wireless Display (and other proprietary Wireless Display implementations) The beauty of the Google Cast protocol is that you can hand over meta-data as well as the actual source-URL to the receiver and it can initiate the stream directly. > the fact that google dropped it from stock android kind of says it all - the…

Most major vendors add it themselves because google refuses to put it in stock. Samsung calls it smart view, for instance. My phone calls it screencast. I use it every day and the experience is decent. Google just didnt like the competition from an open standard i guess. but, they dont control what vendors do. I dont want a proprietary content aware equivalent. There is no beauty to sending metadata separately. There…

using phone resolution & aspect ratio on a large TV is decidedly not beautiful.

not to mention unnecessarily doubling your network bandwidth usage, introducing extra latency, using more power.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#588

Post by OrangeMusic »

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.

Serious question: do you actually leave the TV on when not watching contents? Aren't you worried about your electricity consumption?

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#589

Post by Ambroos »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #147

I had an original 2013 Chromecast plugged into my TV for ten years. It did its job admirably, until it started becoming more and more unstable and began rebooting randomly with each new OS version that Google pushed. I finally replaced it about a month ago with an onn streaming box from Walmart for about 20 bucks--less than I paid for the original Chromecast a decade ago: https://www.walmart.com/ip/onn-Google-TV-4K-S…

I built a Chromecast receiver application for a broadcaster in Belgium back in 2017, and even then the original Chromecast was just a bit of a PITA. Our service was heavily ad supported, and porting our web ads to Chromecast was painful. The OG Chromecast was very hard to work on because of its super limited RAM. When connecting a remote Chrome debugger session you'd have to make sure to clear the console and network request history very often (multiple times per minute), otherwise the whole device would just crash. We generally only developed on the v2/Ultra and an Nvidia Shield, and then crossed our fingers to test on the OG Chromecast.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#590

Post by Ambroos »

sahruum9 wrote: post #561
ianburrell wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is not the case. Only YouTube and Netflix have exceptions where the Android app on Google TV / Android TV intercepts the standard Chromecasting where the TV just pulls up the receiver web app in an ephemeral browser. And even for YouTube it'll automatically log you in in a temporary way when you cast. For anything else, casting to an Android TV device is exactly the same as casting to an old-school Chromecast.
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