Chromecast

bgowland · 2013-09-24, 07:56 AM

Just a quick update on streaming - it turns out it's possible from a local server, just not from side-loaded media on whatever device you're using. I've only tried it with mp4 files so far as I've no idea how to provide mpeg2-ts using mpeg-dash (and still haven't had a definitive answer as to whether it's supported by the Chromecast or not).

Cheers,
Brian

bgowland · 2013-10-08, 07:08 PM

Personally I wouldn't recommend rushing to buy one even though they only have 9 left when I looked.

Fine if you're a Netflix or Hulu subscriber or if you buy music / films from Google Play services but that's about it. Google are really dragging their feet when it comes to the developer side of things and it's only the "big boys" who are getting a look in. Interesting considering Google state that apps built with the "Developer Preview" of the current SDK will be broken when things become final.

It's still a nice gadget and potentially has a future but there are a lot of developers who have become disillusioned by Google's silence and the snail's pace of the updates to the SDK and firmware.

The price also isn't as appealing as it is in the US - at Â£59.99 that's currently around $96 as opposed to just $35 in the US.

Cheers,
Brian

***sub*** · 2013-10-08, 07:30 PM

I did pick one up. It cost me about US$55 including shipping to NZ. It arrived about a week ago, and I only spent a couple of hours playing with it.

Quote:It's still a nice gadget and potentially has a future but there are a lot of developers who have become disillusioned by Google's silence and the snail's pace of the updates to the SDK and firmware.

This pretty much sums up my view of things.

It was neat opening the touch client web page in Chrome, and then selecting to cast the web page to Chromecast, then seeing the live updates on the TV as I interacted with the page in my browser. There was about an extra second or so of latency though, over what I was seeing on the browser locally.

bgowland · 2013-10-08, 08:10 PM

sub Wrote:I did pick one up. It cost me about US$55 including shipping to NZ. It arrived about a week ago, and I only spent a couple of hours playing with it.

In total it worked out about Â£36 (~ US$57) to reimburse my friend which is a lot better than the Â£59.99 price from Amazon UK.

Quote:It was neat opening the touch client web page in Chrome, and then selecting to cast the web page to Chromecast, then seeing the live updates on the TV as I interacted with the page in my browser. There was about an extra second or so of latency though, over what I was seeing on the browser locally.

I've yet to try Touch but might resurrect my nTouch app and give Fred's code a try. The biggest problem will be video playback though - particularly live TV if for no other reason than the formats / codecs supported.

I did find this Does chromecast support MPEG-DASH now? with the link in the answer Media Source Extensions

I'm not sure I understand much of it though. :eek:

Cheers,
Brian

UncleJohnsBand · 2014-01-02, 03:39 AM

Somehow I missed this earlier in the month....

http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theate...at-screen/

I did get a Chromecast myself and have been playing around with it.....it is a slick little device.

I can play local (on my NAS) content through it simply by putting the network address in the Chrome browser bar and selecting a file from the directory to stream and then casting the tab.

bgowland · 2014-01-02, 08:23 AM

UncleJohnsBand Wrote:I did get a Chromecast myself and have been playing around with it.....it is a slick little device.

I can play local (on my NAS) content through it simply by putting the network address in the Chrome browser bar and selecting a file from the directory to stream and then casting the tab.

It definitely has potential and at the price I can see some people might have one for each TV in their home.

What I said a few posts back, however, still holds true - it's still only the "big boys" who can make major inroads and the rest of us are still at the developer preview stage. I did get an invite to a hackathon they held in early December though - unfortunately I couldn't make California. Big Grin

The sample code I downloaded a few months ago is fairly lightweight and it's easy enough to embed cast capability into Android apps so when they eventually release the SDK as a fully public version (supposedly coming soon) I'll look at adding it to nDroid TE.

Cheers,
Brian

bgowland · 2014-02-04, 09:15 AM

...well that's what they told me in an email I just received. Wink

I've continued to follow things on and off but haven't done much more with developing for Chromecast as I was waiting for them to finalise the SDK (or a first version of it at least - I suspect there'll be updates to come).

I've only briefly looked at the docs but it seems publishing a Google Cast app requires a special dev account (similar to the one used for publishing Android apps).

The fact that everything comes under the umbrella title "Google Cast" makes me suspect they're preparing for a number of different technologies and not just the Chromecast. There has been speculation Google are going to make another attempt along the lines of the failed Google TV concept for instance...we'll see.

So basically if you've got a Chromecast, now there's an approved publishing route for public Google Cast apps, expect a bucket load of them to appear in the near future. I expect there are a bunch of Chromecast devs out there who have been waiting for this.

Tic-tac-toe on the big screen anyone? Rolleyes

Cheers,
Brian

HarryH3 · (This post was last modified: 2014-02-04, 04:02 PM by HarryH3.)

bgowland Wrote:tic-tac-toe on the big screen anyone?

A strange game.

The only winning move is
not to play.

Wink

martint123 · 2014-02-04, 09:14 PM

bgowland Wrote:Tic-tac-toe on the big screen anyone?

The very first thing I coded. 1972 and cutting holes out of punched cards with a razor blade.

UncleJohnsBand · 2014-02-05, 04:36 AM

bgowland Wrote:...well that's what they told me in an email I just received.

I've continued to follow things on and off but haven't done much more with developing for Chromecast as I was waiting for them to finalise the SDK (or a first version of it at least - I suspect there'll be updates to come).

I've only briefly looked at the docs but it seems publishing a Google Cast app requires a special dev account (similar to the one used for publishing Android apps).

The fact that everything comes under the umbrella title "Google Cast" makes me suspect they're preparing for a number of different technologies and not just the Chromecast. There has been speculation Google are going to make another attempt along the lines of the failed Google TV concept for instance...we'll see.

So basically if you've got a Chromecast, now there's an approved publishing route for public Google Cast apps, expect a bucket load of them to appear in the near future. I expect there are a bunch of Chromecast devs out there who have been waiting for this.

Tic-tac-toe on the big screen anyone?

Cheers,
Brian

Thanks for the update.