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Google Launches The Chromecast To Bring Chrome To The Living Room
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- rogerchucker 13y agoI'm oddly very very excited about this especially considering the price point ($35), the size and the cross-platform support.
- jfoutz 13y agoI wasn't, but for $35, it's easy to give it a try.
- rogerchucker 13y agoWhat makes it inferior to Apple TV? I own an Apple TV and beyond Netflix and Youtube I really have no use for it.
- rickyc091 13y agoI was sold on the price point for one. Secondly, the nice thing about this is that you aren't stuck on the Apple platform. I can push content from my iPhone, my windows machine or my mac directly to the television. If you are just using it for netflix / youtube and you already have an Apple TV, you definitely won't need this. Forgot to mention that they'll open up their SDK so you can probably expect some cool hacks in the near future.
- tomkarlo 13y agoActually, if you're a heavy YouTube user, the AppleTV interface is terrible and out of date. It's hard to search, hard to access your playlists, etc compared to using the web site or the apps. (I have an AppleTV and it's a constant point of frustration for me.) Making a remote-based, d-pad interface as convenient as a touch screen is very, very difficult.
- saturdaysaint 13y agoI like being able to play movies without fiddling with a laptop. It's awkward because you'll want to immediately point the laptop away from you to avoid light spillage and unless you're on a Haswell laptop, you should probably worry about keeping it powered. Plus, selecting movies on the TV interface makes even choosing the movie a bit more social.
- tomkarlo 13y agoOnce the Chromecast starts playing a stream, you don't need to keep the controlling device turned on (or even in the house.)
- saturdaysaint 13y agoOnly for Netflix and Youtube. If you stream a Chrome tab, it still runs from your computer. Also, this still leaves open how one might download a movie and stream it to one's TV - I guess you'd have to upload the whole thing to Google Drive/Dropbox?
- tomkarlo 13y agoWell, for any service supporting the SDK, which presumably will continue to grow. (Play movies/TV as well, btw.) I don't think "downloading a movie" is a use that they've shown or discussed. It seems primarily like a device for showing streams of video content from the cloud, with a secondary capability of mirroring a Chrome tab. It's not a miracast device; it's more like an AppleTV that you control from your phone or computer.
- cheald 13y agoI saw the price and immediately ordered one. For $35 (which is really ~$11 since I'm already a Netflix subscriber), I'm okay if it sucks.
- bane 13y agoAbsolutely blown away by this. This might just lead us one step closer to the grand unification of devices in the living room that has long been dreamed of. I'm more excited about this than the xbox one announcement that's for sure. The price is unbelievable ($35)...an impulse buy. edit (come to think of it I'd bet we'll start seeing "chromecast ready TVs" by Christmas.
- ja27 13y agoI know. I had already typed a tweet about what a killer device it would be at $99 when they said $35. I went from thinking I would probably get one to now I'll get one for each screen.
- mikeevans 13y agoLooks like you can order it now (with 3 months free on Netflix): https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=chromecast https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=chromecast
- dhyasama 13y agoJust tried to buy one and got an out of inventory message :( UPDATE: Tried again and you can no longer add it to the shopping cart. Just says coming soon. UPDATE 2: I'm a glutton for punishment so I tried again and it worked!
- apendleton 13y agoIt's not clear to me what this means for Google TV, which, it seems, has long been a bastard stepchild in the Google consumer product family. If I both wanted to play games and take advantage of Chromecast apps on my other devices, I guess I would need both? Or maybe there will be a Chromecast receiver app for Google TV? More broadly, this seems symptomatic of the continued tension between the Chrome and Android platforms within Google, since this is yet another space where they're stepping on each other's toes without obvious rhyme or reason from a consumer perspective.
- bane 13y agoI wasn't even aware Google TV was still a "thing". I had assumed the product line was long dead.
- apendleton 13y agoThird-party manufacturers are still making devices (both set-top boxes and TVs) on top of it, and new features were announced for it at this past Google IO. But it's barely alive, I think.
- tcoppi 13y agoI agree, being one of the maybe 12 people in the world that actually uses a Google TV and likes it, I hoped they would have at least mentioned something about it, even that they were killing it. That being said, I still bought a chromecast because it looks friggin sweet.
- IanChiles 13y agoI just ordered one. Impulse buy on my part - but with a SDK + support for multiple devices, I have high hopes for it. Looks really awesome, and it'll probably land up being pretty hackable. :D
- harmonic 13y agoAs a longtime AirPlay user, I find this less exciting since AirPlay works with pretty much anything that's on your iDevice. That said, cross platform is interesting.
- kailuowang 13y agoOther interesting differences include price and ease to setup.
- rogerchucker 13y agoI hope the protocol used is less buggy than AirPlay. AirPlay is very shaky with many apps. I am not sure though if it's the protocol's problem or the app's.
- scholia 13y agoClosed proprietary non-standard solution....
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- CrazedGeek 13y agoAnd Google Cast, with its lovely "You may not publicly distribute or ship your Google Cast application without written permission from Google" warning, isn't?
- Fuzzwah 13y agoAwesome. This will nicely round out my HTPC setup. I have an R-Pi running XBMC along with an MK802ii on which I've built a system which lets me trigger music playback from XBMC using RFID cards. http://fuzzysprojects.wordpress.com/rfid-triggered-music/ http://fuzzysprojects.wordpress.com/rfid-triggered-music/ I had been working on a way to get youtube vids to playback in XBMC by firing a json call at it, but with out spending time hacking together my own chrome extension I was never going to be able to make it easy enough for my wife to do. I had already made the purchase before I headed here to the comments and noticed that it also came with 3 months of netflix. Nice bonus. PS: the learn more link isn't working atm: http://www.google.com/chromecast http://www.google.com/chromecast
- Shorel 13y agoThe easiest way to connect my PC to a HDTV is my HDMI cable.
- saturdaysaint 13y agoToo bad it doesn't work with Chromebooks (other than the pixel). I understand that we're lucky that the ARM-based models can even handle hi-res video at all, but I'd think the Intel-based Acer could handle this too.
- evandena 13y agoI don't think the "remote" device is doing any of the work. Once the Chromecast stick gets the feed, it will be doing all the streaming, or a combination of serverside work. I think the older Chromebooks might not have the Chrome extensions yet. I can't imagine them not being supported sometime soon.
- tsycho 13y agoThe obvious question: Why would you buy this if you already had an Apple TV (or were considering buying one)? * Cross-platform support, not just iDevices * For apps that integrate with the SDK (currently Youtube & Netflix, but I am sure more will be coming soon), the processing of the content can be transferred to the the Chromecast. Hence, once you "flick" your Netflix content to Chromecast, your phone is free and not processing content anymore unlike Airplay, which is a huge win for your phone's battery. * All your phones/tablets/computers become your remote/controllers. * The price (at $35, it's a relatively low-risk impulse buy) * UPDATE: It automatically switches to the HDMI input channel when streamed, atleast on my LG TV. My 3rd gen Apple TV doesn't so I have to find the TV remote to switch HDMI inputs, which can sometimes be annoying.
- psbp 13y agoJust bought one. It's surprising that Google came up with such a compelling solution after the failure of the Nexus Q.
- mikeevans 13y agoSeems exactly like the evolution of the Nexus Q. It interfaces the exact same way with the Youtube/Play Movies apps, minus the need for a special app to set it up.
- pgrote 13y agoAre you constrained to streaming only approved sites? For instance, if I go to watch espn can I stream that onto the TV?
- psbp 13y agoYou can tab stream and there's apparently an sdk so there's pretty much no barriers to streaming!!
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- brown9-2 13y agoIt seems like existing Netflix customers have a strong incentive to "buy" the Chromecast since it is essentially free as long as your Netflix plan is $12/month or more: Once your Chromecast ships, you will recieve an email with a promotional code for 3 months of Netflix. Offer valid for previous, new and existing Netflix members, one per Netflix account.
- zellyn 13y agoFrom reading the fine print, it appears that it's only the $7.99-per-month plan that's covered, but you can apply that discount against a more expensive plan. [Edit: note that that still leaves it very cheap.]
- toomuchtodo 13y agoYes. If you already have Netflix, it's essentially a $12 device. Stupid easy decision to make. Disclaimer: I just bought one.
- knocknock 13y agoNo love for Miracast
- davefp 13y agoI love this. Last year I was super-excited about the Nexus Q (I have my I/O freebie in a box somewhere) but was disappointed by a) the price and b) the lack of an SDK. A year later, we get ChromeCast. It's a tenth of the size, a tenth of the price, and supports every device in my home. I'm glad Google decided not to run with the Q and had the balls to pull it out of production while they (I assume) worked on ChromeCast.
- nilsbunger 13y ago"Powered by usb" is confusing. Does it have to be plugged into a computer to work? Or just a USB power source like a charger? EDIT: Engadget article has more info, looks like just USB power. Exciting! http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/24/google-chromekey/ http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/24/google-chromekey/
- rawatson 13y agoJust ordered mine. I continue to be impressed by the uses Google has found for Chrome. Building new features into Chrome gives Google the capabilities of a full desktop application without the need to convince users to install new software. Google can just issue an update to Chrome to instantly ship new projects to ~20% of web users.
- bane 13y agoWhat's really interesting is that they seem to be accomplishing it without breaking the web a la Microsoft style.
- CurtHagenlocher 13y agoCan I use this without creating or logging into a Google account?
- guelo 13y agoHow does it power itself? Does HDMI provide power?
- boomzilla 13y agopowered by USB connection
- ja27 13y agoFunny that the photos don't show that. A lot of TVs have USB ports that could maybe power this.
- TheMakeA 13y agoIt's an interesting design problem for sure. Do they make it a USB dongle and have an HDMI cable going out? Or an HDMI dongle with a USB cable going out?
- fishywang 13y agoThe latter.
- guelo 13y agoFunction-wise two cables would be the better design. On my TV this dongle would probably interfere with cables in the ports next to it. In this picture you can imagine the problem if there was another HDMI port right above the one it's plugged into, https://lh6.ggpht.com/jbhD_qpdQkLDEk4Y6PV9E2vBWM7__xjVzE18_Jb6DHRIWaad_F3oK5z1B-VKxazaarQ9=h900 https://lh6.ggpht.com/jbhD_qpdQkLDEk4Y6PV9E2vBWM7__xjVzE18_J...
- guelo 13y agoAh, now I see. The marketing pics make it look a lot cleaner than it really is. There will be a cable coming out of the thing, probably going into your power strip.
- 13y ago
- alooPotato 13y agoCan I push a chrome tab to this thing and then shut off my laptop and have the tab still displayed on the chrome key? I'm thinking of using this for all of the dashboards in our office, at $35 each, that would be awesome.
- dkulchenko 13y agoHmm... can I only stream from Chrome? What about my local movie collection?
- SEMW 13y agoOfficially, the chromecast API only (so far) supports sender applications built on ios, android, and chrome (https://developers.google.com/cast/ https://developers.google.com/cast/). Unofficially, I'd be surprised if vlc hasn't found a way to be a chromecast sender within 6 months.
- est 13y agoDoes VLC support full DLNA stack yet?
- rogerchucker 13y agoWhy the fuck doesn't Wall Street like this? GOOG's been going down since the presentation started.
- ryanklee 13y agoIt's down 0.13%. Look at any other day at random to see that that's hardly a meaningful fluctuation. Further, trying to attribute stock price movements to actual real world events is usually an extremely dubious affair.
- k-mcgrady 13y agoThis happens to Apple too. It's the way the market works. It's based on speculation. Rumours are usually much more exciting than what's actually announced, people buy based on the rumours, and when the actual products are announced (even when they are good) they fail to meet crazy expectations and the market corrects - people sell.
- rogerchucker 13y agoBut does that Apple analogy apply here? Apple's rumors are at a crazier scale than Google's and Chromecast in particular was barely a whisper on the street, especially with more reports pointing to Nexus 7 in the days leading up to this event.
- k-mcgrady 13y agoTrue, I'm sure it still probably applies just to a lesser extent. I just checked and it looks like after the fall it's started to rise again. Edit: Looked again and the fall/rise is pretty much mirroring the Dow and NASDAQ today.
- rogerchucker 13y agoSo basically no expectation and hence no effect.
- 13y ago
- randallu 13y agoI wonder what the SoC is on this, and if it runs Android. I assume it has some UI for connecting to WiFi, so conceivably it could be like those cheap Android HDMI dongles inside.
- throwaway1979 13y agoI don't see this thing on Amazon.com (US store). Am I missing something?
- ddedden 13y agoThey just added it in the last hour or so.
- dangrossman 13y agoI'm extremely surprised that Google actually added this to Google TV. I figured, at this point, that my 3-year-old Revue box was long-forgotten by Google. The "play on Google TV" button showed up on both my desktop (in Chrome) and phone (in the YouTube app) some weeks or months ago, I'm not sure. It works just like this Chromecast thing was described -- whatever I was watching on the other device shows up on the TV and playback can be controlled from either side.
- lftl 13y agoSo you can use the tab casting feature in Chrome to cast to your Revue? I dusted my Revue off, forced it to update, and now I can control it from the Youtube app on my Android phone, but in Chrome it says "No cast devices found"
- dangrossman 13y agoNo, there's no tab casting. Just YouTube sharing. I think it's the Chromemote app that added the button to YouTube. In Android, the native YouTube app can cast to Google TV and remotely control the playback on the TV.
- lftl 13y agoAhh, too bad. Tab casting is really the killer feature to me. I thought I had finally found a reason to use the old Revue again :)
- jrockway 13y agoI'm pretty excited about this. At Google, we use Hangouts to share our laptop's screen with TVs in the conference rooms (for meetings, presentations, that sort of thing), and I've always wanted a way to do this easily at home. I'm much too lazy to plug my laptop into the TV, after all :) Sounds like we finally have the answer!
- jebblue 13y agoPut a real operating system in it and I might consider dumping my excellent Roku.
- rogerbinns 13y agoI have one of those Rokus. Notice the lack of a Youtube channel :-)
- porker 13y agoCan it playback DIVX/XVID?
- est 13y agoAnd how about subtitles? DLNA doesn't support subtitles unless it's inlined in mp4 container.
- pmelendez 13y agoI guess I am the only who is not particularly excited about this. Other than the price it is a "me too" response to AppleTV. One of the most annoying thing about these devices is that because the lack of storage, they need to be streaming all the time (which is a problem with connections with a cap like in Canada) which is very inconvenient if you want to buy movies on iTunes/Google Play. AppleTV enables game devs to use the TV as a separate common screen for multi users games but that feature seems to be missing with the Chromecast (or at least I couldn't find any reference to it) So as an AppleTV owner I just can't help but to think this as a "meh"
- WayneDB 13y agoAt my house we have a full Windows 7 PC or laptop attached to every TV and a wireless combo keyboard/trackpad. It's been that way for over 5 years and there's nothing we can't do with them. We didn't spend much to do this either - these are all old or leftover computers except for the one in my wife's room because she wanted a quad-digital-tuner Windows media center (so I built her a tiny shuttle box with a Ceton tuner).
- jebblue 13y agoGoing by the hits on Amazon I'm seeing I think Roku beats AppleTV easily.
- qq66 13y agoThis is only useful to me if it also is supported by a major Windows media player like VLC. What I like about AirPlay is that I can flick something from my phone to the TV, but also from iTunes (blech) to the TV. I would love to have a solution that did not involve iTunes. I love that the price is 1/3 of the Apple TV.
- Kerrick 13y ago> Note: You may not publicly distribute or ship your Google Cast application without written permission from Google, per the terms of service described below. https://developers.google.com/cast/downloads/ https://developers.google.com/cast/downloads/ > YOU MAY NOT PUBLICLY DISTRIBUTE CODE CONTAINING THIS SDK OR REFERENCING THESE APIs WITHOUT A WRITTEN AGREEMENT WITH GOOGLE ALLOWING YOU TO DO SO. > By accessing the download links below, you indicate that you have read and accept Google's API Terms and further agree not to publicly distribute code containing the SDK and APIs accessed through the links below unless and until you enter a written agreement with Google providing such permission. > If you wish to discuss shipping your apps, please write us at chromecast-updates@google.com
- sbuccini 13y agoThe fine print says "power cord not shown." I'm assuming for this is the device itself? Shouldn't it be able to power through USB?
- mycodebreaks 13y agoWill it work if I inserted Chromecast into HDMI port of my monitor rather than a TV?
- ok_craig 13y agoThe biggest news here is that the dongle is running a version of Chrome, not Android.
- jebblue 13y agoMy Roku runs a real operating system so IMO Google loses out again by trying to push the all Google browser all the time and oh they own all our data.
- twentyfourseven 13y agoNSA, US government, tyrants everywhere, watch Google carefully for how it's done. For a fickle crowd like Hacker News, you can seize their liberty and human rights easily - just distract them with shiny new things. For shiny new toys, some people will rationalize anything ;-)