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Chromecast with Google TV
- cobookman 6y agoIs Google TV rebranded Android TV?
- benjaminl 6y agoThe tech specs say it is running “Android TV OS”. It is a rebranding and the new direction of Android TV. (https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/09/google-merges-chromecast-and-android-tv-with-the-chromecast-with-google-tv/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/09/google-merges-chrome...) > “But while Android TV is the foundation of the new Chromecast, the whole experience feels very new. Because unlike TVs from Sony and set-top boxes from Nvidia and other brands that run the traditional version of Android TV, Google has created a new “Google TV” layer atop the operating system that completely replaces the old home screen experience.” From https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/29/21494298/chromecast-google-tv-preview-android-features https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/29/21494298/chromecast-googl...
- actuator 6y agoI think Google TV is the name of the device. From the launch livestream it looks like the same software will come to other Android TV devices as well.
- josteink 6y agoSo Google TV is a device which runs Android TV, which obviously supports Chromecast, because any Android TV device supports that, and lets you run apps such as YouTube and consume a US-only service called YouTube TV, just like any other Android TV device. What’s unique about this? It sounds entirely underwhelming. And I especially say that as someone who enthusiastically bought a Nexus Player, only to get rid off it a few weeks later.
- Klathmon 6y agoIt looks like it's the rebranded version of "Play Movies & TV" based on the android app's title: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.videos&hl=en_US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...
- amaccuish 6y agoThat you have to ask this question. Google naming is terrible.
- ignoramous 6y ago"Android TV" is literally any smart TV that runs Android with Google's blessing. Analogous with "Android phone". Chromecast with Google TV is more in line with Apple TV, FireTV, and the now discontinued Nexus TV.
- cobookman 6y agoI'm totally confused. So I have an Nvidia Shield that I bought a few years back. How is this different?
- ignoramous 6y agoNvidia Shield is in direction competition with Chromecast with Google TV. Usually, the actual TVs that run Android are marketed as "Android TVs". It looks like streaming devices like Nvidia Sheild do so too when they're in fact not "Android TVs".
- cwkoss 6y agoDoes Google TV provide any content itself, or is this just a wrapper around other streaming services so Google can collect better data on what you're watching?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- actuator 6y agoWell, they have Youtube and Youtube TV. Also, content bought/rented on Play store.
- jsmith45 6y agoPlay Movies & TV has been renamed to "Google TV", so I expect buying/renting from google will likely be highly integrated into this, since it is supposed to do things like share a playlist with the android app, etc.
- TulliusCicero 6y agoGoogle TV is a device + client software. Google does provide content itself...in the form of YouTube.
- actuator 6y agoThe integration with Google search and Nest devices looks so awesome. An easy to access platform independent watchlist is quite convenient. I am surprised that they gave a button to Netflix as well on the remote. Though it does make sense considering YT and Netflix is what I use mostly on even Fire TV when not watching sports.
- gondo 6y agoPartnering with Netflix is most likely to compete with Apple and Amazon. Enemy of my enemy is my friend.
- scarface74 6y agoHow is Netflix an “enemy” of Apple? Apple has made sure Netflix runs well on all of their devices since the first iPad.
- tfsh 6y agoIf not an "enemy", a competitor. Apple has Apple TV, Google has YouTube Originals of course but I see Google partnering with Netflix much more than I see Apple doing so
- scarface74 6y agoHow much more “partnering” can you have than Netflix being one of the first streaming apps on the iPad and the third Gen AppleTV - which didn’t have an App Store. There isn’t quite the integration between Netflix and the TV app as there is with other providers only because Netflix didn’t want it. But if you search for a movie in the TV app and the movie is available from both Apple and Netflix, they will show you it’s available in Netflix instead of trying to get you to buy it. Apple sells hardware. You can’t sell streaming hardware that doesn’t work well with Netflix. I doubt Apple sees AppleTV+ by itself as a profit generator any more than Amazon sees Amazon Prime as a revenue provider. It just makes the bundle more attractive which gets more people into the ecosystem. Apple and Amazon have all types of bundle deals/discounts if you buy other streaming services within their apps.
- dubcanada 6y agoIt seems to have multiple streaming services (I see The Boys from Prime, stuff from Disney, stuff from Netflix, etc) is that correct? Or do you need to go into Crave/Prime/Netflix to see the respective shows?
- animationwill 6y agoNot sure about this but I’ll mention The FireTV stick will show you shows from multiple services without entering those apps. And any given show/movie has a “more ways to watch” Option to show where else it’s available (such as when a specific app has it for free). I can also watch HBO shows directly in the firetv’s native viewer without entering the HBO “app”
- scarface74 6y agoThe AppleTV also has these features.
- move-on-by 6y agoOh boy, let me tell you about my LG Google TV (55GA7900). It was awesome when it was brand new, I really enjoyed being able to install various apps (this is pre-roku days where it wasn't common place). After a couple years, they moved on to Android TV - but everything still worked and they still pushed out some occasional updates. Well, a few more years went by and it became EOL. LG pushed out one final update which fixed a few things and disabled the update feature altogether (Android 4.2.2). Well guess what? The update was junk and made it where you could not scan for over-the-air channels. The scanner would just crash and no channels would be found. There was no way to go directly to a channel or manual add channels - scan only. So here I was with a smart tv that couldn't even watch TV over the air. I'm sure LG was also to blame, not just Google, but I sure wouldn't buy or recommend a google TV. Looks like they are now switching back to Google TV and the poor folks who were duped into getting an Android TV will be the next to experience abandonment. More info on Google TV: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_TV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_TV
- throwaways885 6y agoGoogle TV is software which runs on Android TV devices made by Google. It's not a replacement of Android TV. It's akin to Windows Media Center running on Windows XP.
- basch 6y agoGoogle TV was a predecessor to Android TV. Source I have one of each in the house, but also the wiki article in the post you replied to. Google TV may have run on top of Android, but it was its own Shell. The OS was still useful until a youtube update killed youtube on it. The TV came with a full keyboard on the remote. The new Google TV is more akin to iPad OS and iOS splitting, where the TV and Phone variant can have their own identity, but from the looks of it, its starting out as just a single android app, and not a full on shell fork.
- throwaways885 6y agoYes I know. My point was that Android TV is already an operating system in itself (which already has it's own TV features), and Google TV is a rebranding of the software running upon that OS. Namely, the new home screen app.
- shajznnckfke 6y agoIMO, Apple TV has been one of the strengths of the iOS ecosystem over Android. Chromecast has a lot of good integrations, but the dongle’s lack of a standalone UI with independent controls made it awkward for communal living room use. Looks like this could be a strong competitor and the price greatly undercuts Apple. I’m excited to try it out.
- scarface74 6y agoWith part of the cost of anything Google related is your privacy....
- criddell 6y agoI don't understand why this comment was downvoted. This is priced the way it is because the profit isn't in the hardware, it's in the viewer data. It's very cheap only if you set the value of your privacy to some very low number.
- anoncareer0212 6y agoAnecdotally, techies are tiring of vague statements about privacy and 'you're the product', especially about Google. If theres a tangible cost beyond enabling ad targeting, people are still amenable (this has always been true for the general populace, Google has a more trustworthy image than Apple! Imagine that)
- criddell 6y agoI think you're right about the attitude among techies - especially those around San Francisco - and I think that's part of the reason why our reputation is in decline. A lot of America sees us as a bunch of creeps spying on everything they do and they aren't wrong about that. Video records are a special class of data covered by the Video Privacy Protection Act. The tangible cost is the risk that your viewing history would be used to attack you. It happened before and that's what spurred the creation of that act.
- mercora 6y agodoes somebody here know if you could install live tv providers like you could do with the usual Android based devices? i am specifically talking about this[0] app. It probably highly depends on the availability of the app store or sideloading... [0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=se.hedekonsult.pvrlive https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=se.hedekonsult...
- animationwill 6y agoDon’t forget Google already abandoned Google TV once: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_TV https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_TV I bought it as a gift for someone once and they cancelled it and deleted the SDK.
- josteink 6y agoMaybe this will be a product which Google cancels twice then. Would that be a first?
- nickff 6y ago"Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat." -Winston S. Churchill (quote likely true but original provenance unknown)
- tehlike 6y agodon't know about google tv, but chromecast is wildly successful.
- Spare_account 6y agoIs product success a useful metric for whether or not Google cancel services?
- achtung82 6y agoUsually yes.
- animationwill 6y ago>> Is product success a useful metric for whether or not Google cancel services? Yes. Unsuccessful products get cancelled. The successful services get to stay but the customers get hit with "insane price hikes": https://www.geoawesomeness.com/developers-up-in-arms-over-google-maps-api-insane-price-hike/ https://www.geoawesomeness.com/developers-up-in-arms-over-go...
- AnssiH 6y agoHere is a link to the US store that works globally: https://store.google.com/us/product/chromecast_google_tv https://store.google.com/us/product/chromecast_google_tv The current article link (https://store.google.com/product/chromecast_google_tv https://store.google.com/product/chromecast_google_tv) just goes to Google Store homepage for me (Finland).
- ValentineC 6y agoThanks, this was helpful for me accessing the Google Store from outside the US as well. @dang, could we please change the thread link to the one above?
- uptown 6y agoThis looks like the Apple TV interface for people who don't live in the Apple device ecosystem.
- what_ever 6y agoAnd probably pay less as well as get casting feature on non-Apple devices. Disc: Googler.
- Bahamut 6y agoOn a side note, anyone else get janky behavior trying to scroll on the homepage here? It feels like a janky/simpler version of what you see for the Apple product pages.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- blakesterz 6y agoYes, that page was brutal, I really struggled. Took waaaay too long to figure out what the heck they were even trying to sell there.
- crowbahr 6y agoYes. It jerks based on the scroll wheel. If you use smooth scrolling by middle mouse click then movement it works OK.
- anderspitman 6y agoYeah, the scrolljacking performance on Linux Firefox it atrocious for me.
- McGlockenshire 6y agoYeah, the initial scrolling experience was insufferable. I had to resort to using pagedown and eventually just grabbing the tiny scrollbar instead of my mouse scrollwheel to make any sort of useful progress, and even then it was made difficult by absurdly "long" animations and visuals instead of actual information. The thing that really got my goat is how areas shifted in contrast for entire pages for single sentences of text. It feels like there were maybe two to three paragraphs of text total on that page. I want to read the text. I do not want flying, fading out images all over the place. This low-information-density design trend is an incredibly user-unfriendly experience for desktop users.
- criddell 6y agoI wonder if you can turn off the full screen ad? I'd rather pick my own background image.
- seppin 6y agoExactly, I love having my own photos as a screensaver with my current Chromecast.
- seppin 6y agoAlso I noticed with the latest upgrade they added the date the photo was taken on the screen, a small but very cool improvement. So I guess they are still upgrading and paying attention to older models ?
- koiz 6y agoLooks great, been waiting to get out of the roku world for too long.
- anderspitman 6y agoCurious what the shortcomings of Roku are for you? I'm not a heavy user but my ultra has been great.
- dubcanada 6y agoAlso curious, I love my Roku. The fact the remote has navigation buttons and has a headphone jack when others are sleeping is amazing.
- v7p1Qbt1im 6y agoNot OP but I find the interface to be quite ugly and dated. Also some apps are missing (might be a region issue, though). Google TV seems to be the most complete solution now. Next to Apple TV and Shield.
- koiz 6y agoBingo! The UI isn't the best and it does feel sluggish at times switching between things. Also I really don't enjoy the Roku Ads and feel like that's just going to get worse.
- josteink 6y agoHeadsup, for me (Mainland europe), this instantly redirects to the general google store homepage, which is currently selling the 'nest audio' product above the fold. Not sure where to find the real product page. Edit: Link: https://store.google.com/us/product/chromecast_google_tv https://store.google.com/us/product/chromecast_google_tv
- usaphp 6y agoI still have the Sony TV with built in Google TV, which is a brick now, because I can't update it anymore and google has abandoned it. Not doing the same mistake again.
- TulliusCicero 6y agoAs opposed to other built-in OEM smart platforms, which definitely have a long life filled with useful updates? The real solution is that the smarts should be in a Chromecast or Apple TV or Roku, that way it's easy to replace or upgrade.
- bhandziuk 6y agoAbsolutely. A TV should be as dumb as possible. It's a large monitor with one video input and no speakers.
- appleflaxen 6y agois a charge back or small claims court an option when the goods are taken away from you long after purchase? probably not worth the time it would take, but this kind of behavior from companies like google is just so toxic.
- Someone1234 6y agoThe Netflix offer is difficult to ignore if you already have the Netflix standard plan, it essentially makes this device cost only $12.05 ($12.99 * 6 = 77.94 - $89.99). That kind of offer isn't itself surprising, but it being available to existing Netflix subscribers is unusual.
- StringyBob 6y agoTempted by the offer being open to existing subscribers, but seems odd they are selling a 4K/HDR supporting device, but not offering a 4K based plan!
- Someone1234 6y agoThey let you apply the value of this offer to the 4K plan, from the terms: > You may apply the value of the offer to a different Netflix streaming plan.
- billh 6y agoI'm confused why they are not pushing the 4k plan as well, maybe that would put it out of a price target they were hoping to hit? From the terms of the offer, it does look like you can apply the value of the offer to a 4k plan at a reduced duration. * Offer value may be applied to a different Netflix streaming plan under the same account; exchanges in this manner may alter the duration of the offer. Netflix price plans subject to change and the duration of the offer value may be prorated accordingly.
- jayd16 6y ago4K streaming while everyone is stuck at home has been kind of a mess.
- strawberrypuree 6y agoThe device only cost $12.05 because it's being subsidized by data collection to track your viewing habits and make targeted ads.
- nickthegreek 6y agoRidiculous that this doesn't work with Stadia at launch.
- dougmwne 6y agoOh weird! Yes it seems like it will be coming in 2021. I bet that the latency of new Chromecast was too high and they'll need to spend 6 months optimizing before they can get it down where it needs to be, which means the 2 teams must have been almost blissfully unaware of each other. This sounds like typical Google where the development of this product and Stadia were so separated that they completely missed the huge opportunity. What a frustrating miss. Stadia has been advertising like crazy and you'd need to buy the EOL Chromecast Ultra to play on a TV and they'll miss one of their strongest cross-promotions going into the holiday season. They could have been undercutting PS5 and Series X with a $50 device that played the same AAA games with the Bluetooth controller you already own. This company is a zombie.
- glennpratt 6y agoFWIW, reports are that it does work, probably some bugs or testing didn't make it in time for it to be official. https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/29/21494161/google-chromecast-stadia-cloud-gaming-streaming-support https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/29/21494161/google-chromecas...
- rhino369 6y agoI've been a long time Roku user, who didn't like chromecast because I prefer a UI and a hardware remote. The advertising suggests it organizes all services into one screen. That is promising. But I am willing to bet it only covers certain streaming services and wouldn't cover Plex (or apps like it). I'll read reviews with interest.
- jsmith45 6y agoSince it uses the Google TV app (previously known as Play Movies & TV) as the data source, it supports whatever that does, which almost certainly does not include Plex or similar. On the other hand, it probably does support streaming from any Cast enabled app, so it probably won't be any worse than a classic chromecast, even if direct on device content is probably highly limited. The real question is if it supports installing Android TV apps, to extend the built-in UI or if it is limited casting and the content from the app. Another screenshot shows a "My Apps" row on the homescreen, so I suspect it might actually support installing additional apps. I tend to doubt they get to integrate with the launcher in any meaningful way though. Android TV did allow that, but they seem to want to be able to support things like a single playlist across the android Google TV app and the various new Google TV devices.
- jeffbee 6y agoCompared to LG webOS, which I already have, this doesn't seem to bring any value. LG already has the headline features here: voice search and find content across apps. I can search for a title by voice and my LG TV shows me which app offers that title. I have Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Google Play, YouTube, etc. And I can cast to the TV from YouTube on my phone. On top of that I really appreciate how efficient webOS seems to be. Since the apps are just HTML/JS the updates are very unobtrusive, sometimes downloading a few kilobytes only. Not at all the horror show that is Android app updates.
- Farbklex 6y agoYeah, screw this. I already have a 2018 900€ Android TV from Sony and it really frustrating to a point this whole OS just makes me angry. It is really bad.
- la6471 6y agoFire TV is really awesome. Changed my perspective of TV.
- boredumb 6y agoI love my little chromecast dongle. Makes my cheapo dumb TV smart enough to play tubitv or vhscast.com from my phone and when people are over they can send stuff from youtube as long as they're on wifi.
- mdoms 6y agoI just get a page with a bunch of Nest cameras.
- foepys 6y agoDoes this mean the old Chromecast and all its functionality is EOL soon? Given Google's track record I don't see them supporting it for much longer. Chromecast is nearly perfect for me because I don't need to clutter my TV or a device with apps I could always just use my phone apps that already were logged into everything to play videos.
- kin 6y agoIs it just me or is Google consistently awful at product marketing? They've already had a Google TV that they killed. They've also already killed Chromecast Audio. Now this thing is called "Chromecast with Google TV". I think consumers are going to be confused. The ability to bundle in 6 months of Netflix for $40 is so random. Why not offer a YoutubeTV bundle? Where is the product synergy? It's nice that Stadia will come later but that the fact that it's not available at launch is a huge missed opportunity.
- dougmwne 6y agoIt is most definitely not just you. The disconnect between the team that created this product and the YouTube TV/Android TV/Stadia/Google Home teams just shows that the leadership at Google must be extremely poor. I don't blame the engineers and product managers for making a siloed product. It probably a fine product on it's own. But the failure to connect the dots and capitalize on the synergies across the org speaks to a big executive failure. What could have been a big push for monthly recurring revenue through both YouTube TV and Stadia with enticing package deals is instead just a $50 gadget. Why does Google even bother with consumer products and subscriptions any more? The only thing I can think of is these tiny projects in disparate areas are just there to supply panel data they can feed into their ad profile algos, just enough data to be statistically significant and only ever popular by accident.
- seppin 6y agoMarketers are a waste, let the engineers run product teams. /s
- candiddevmike 6y agoI would love for them to open this up to more android apps and support bluetooth pairing. This would be a hit if you could use Steam Link or Xbox Game Streaming.
- agloeregrets 6y agoIt does all of that actually. Has the play store, any AndroidTV apps work, they just need to list them. However, those apps can be sideloaded. The Type C power port is also USB-C input :) just add a Hub.
- DonnyV 6y agoDoes it run Plex?
- josefresco 6y agoAs a current YouTube TV subscriber this confuses the hell out of me. I can't imagine what your average non-techy consumer thinks.
- als0 6y agoIs there a way to use this without the remote? The microphone is a dealbreaker.
- renewiltord 6y agoThis is just Chromecast with a remote. I don't need it, I can just talk to any of the microphones in the house.