5 ms·

> 1.5B casts from Chromecast Interesting, I didn't know that every cast was reported back to the mothership.

untog 11y ago
Not to say that it does. Users who have opted into provide data to Google might have a once-a-month ping containing the number of times it's been used.
dyladan 11y ago
There are plenty of other ways to get that information. Statistics (x number sold * y average casts per user), asking streaming companies (i'm sure netflix and hulu know when you're on a chromecast and could report rough numbers to google), and i'm pretty sure there are other ways that I'm not thinking of.
- lepht 11y ago
  ... and how would they know "average casts per user"?
  - magicalist 11y ago
    You don't, but that's what the entire field of statistics was invented for to estimate :) From the above, though, it sounds like that's not necessary since it's fundamental to the cast protocol.
- ohitsdom 11y ago
  Nope. As others have pointed out, every cast has to begin with a call to google.com (which is why chromecast must be connected to the internet). The call basically sends an id number to google, and then google returns a URL of where to get the code for that cast.
izacus 11y ago
Actually it does - the casting isn't triggered locally directly, but the castee sends a chromecast ID + app ID to Google servers which then sends appropriate payload to the CC.
- rev_bird 11y ago
  Interesting -- that seems like it'd be introducing a lot of points to grow latency if you're casting a Chrome tab. Do you happen to know if that works differently?
  - jmgrosen 11y ago
    Chrome tabs use the same process for initiation, but then use WebRTC to actually stream the tab over the local network.
  - izacus 11y ago
    The actual media data / streams can of course cast directly by sending a local network URL to HTML5 part of your app, but the load of that HTML5 part is triggered via Google servers - essentially the Google server tells CC which URL to load for a certain app.

untog 11y ago

Not to say that it does. Users who have opted into provide data to Google might have a once-a-month ping containing the number of times it's been used.

dyladan 11y ago

There are plenty of other ways to get that information. Statistics (x number sold * y average casts per user), asking streaming companies (i'm sure netflix and hulu know when you're on a chromecast and could report rough numbers to google), and i'm pretty sure there are other ways that I'm not thinking of.

lepht 11y ago
... and how would they know "average casts per user"?
- magicalist 11y ago
  You don't, but that's what the entire field of statistics was invented for to estimate :) From the above, though, it sounds like that's not necessary since it's fundamental to the cast protocol.
ohitsdom 11y ago
Nope. As others have pointed out, every cast has to begin with a call to google.com (which is why chromecast must be connected to the internet). The call basically sends an id number to google, and then google returns a URL of where to get the code for that cast.

izacus 11y ago

Actually it does - the casting isn't triggered locally directly, but the castee sends a chromecast ID + app ID to Google servers which then sends appropriate payload to the CC.

rev_bird 11y ago
Interesting -- that seems like it'd be introducing a lot of points to grow latency if you're casting a Chrome tab. Do you happen to know if that works differently?
- jmgrosen 11y ago
  Chrome tabs use the same process for initiation, but then use WebRTC to actually stream the tab over the local network.
- izacus 11y ago
  The actual media data / streams can of course cast directly by sending a local network URL to HTML5 part of your app, but the load of that HTML5 part is triggered via Google servers - essentially the Google server tells CC which URL to load for a certain app.