Chromecast.

[Tom]

This little thing arrived yesterday. Bought it for my Dad as a "hassle free" way of putting content on his TV. (has an iPad and a HTC one)

The reality is far from the case, after about an hour of faffing and bugging about with router security settings i got it to work.
Picture quality is terrible and there's massive lag on the controls to and from YouTube. Netflix is much better but that takes an age to buffer instead.

Casting tabs from chrome is cool, its labeled as BETA but it works great.

With my TV (which admittedly is old) it wont auto switch inputs or turn the TV on like it said it would leaving you to faff with remotes.

Hopefully i have more luck with his newer setup, but for the moment id give it 3/10.

 

[dave_rudabar]

I think the auto-on/off only works if the TV supports CEC, which yours may not.

 

[Tom]

No it does as my youview box and bluray player both work with some elements of CEC. CEC is probably the worst supported standard on the planet, so i'm not surprised.

 

[Keydogg]

Where did you buy from Tom, and how much? I was a little surprised when I saw them for £59 on amazon when they're $35 in the US.

 

[Tom]

Where did you buy from Tom, and how much? I was a little surprised when I saw them for £59 on amazon when they're $35 in the US.

Amazon USA (before they realised and pulled them) paid £35

 

[Keydogg]

Good effort, I noticed this morning it said they were no longer shipping internationally. Gutted!

 

[Tom]

Quick update, worked flawlessly on a single band N network and full CEC control on dads Samsung.

 

[Tom]

This has now arrived in the UK. Get one.

Wifi issues are sorted and it supports plex and iPlayer now. So its more of a 7/10

 

[_Tom]

Is there any benefit to me getting this over the JB ATV 2?

 

[Scrooge]

This has now arrived in the UK. Get one.

Wifi issues are sorted and it supports plex and iPlayer now. So its more of a 7/10

Is it better than a Roku? Or indeed my Android 4.0 media player?

 

[Tom]

Dunno

 

[Scrooge]

Ha

 

[FlamingMonkey]

I got one yesterday, works flawlessly, setup within a few minutes using my phone, only used YouTube, iPlayer, Play Music and Photo Cast so far. Works as expected.

 

[James28]

Say you opened a stream in a tab on chrome, would this play the stream on the t.v.? Or is it only certain pages ?

 

[MatthewR]

Is this worth getting to plug into an xbox one or is that a stupid idea?

 

[ThomasBrentnall]

Is this worth getting to plug into an xbox one or is that a stupid idea?

It plugs into your tv via HDMI, not sure much would happen if you plugged it into your xbox? :S

 

[MatthewR]

Xbox one has the option to plug in a HDMI input, as far as i know the Xbox one dosnt have the option to screen mirror and neither does my tv therefore if the chromecast works through it then it would make it perfect especially as my tv only has one HDMI in.

 

[Tom]

In theory it should work perfectly.

 

[MatthewR]

Cheers Tom, for the sake of £30 i can always pass it on to the parents if it doesn't work!

 

[sneeks]

I bought one of these yesterday, no real need for it but at £30 I thought I may as well buy one.

 

[botfch]

Got two of these the other day on staff offer, handy for music through TV's soundbar.

 

[MatthewR]

Got one of these today, works perfect through the box one and will be handy to take to mates who don't have capability to play USB through their tvs if we are watching a film. Love it so far.

 

[cava83]

I wonder how the update of this will be affected after Amazon's latest release. That box looks immense.

 

[Tom]

If you live in the US

 

[BigDaveRotary]

Bought one.

Buy films through Google a decent amount due to train journey's to work each day. This means I can easily pop them onto the TV!

Might never buy a Blu-Ray again. As long as somewhere has decent wi-fi. Easy to transport as well!

 

[Tom]

Well don't get too excited, you'd need a conventional wifi setup to travel with it but thats easily bypassed with a bit of extra hardware.

BT Sport now works with it, which is nice.

 

[BigDaveRotary]

No no. I buy films to watch on my tablet as I travel. The chrome cast means I can watch them easily on the TV haha.

 

[Tom]

Ah. Cool.

 

[levaz]

what does it actually do?

I'm looking for an EASY way to stream website video content (footie for the 70yo computer distrusting father in law) from a laptop to the tv so he can ditch his £90 a month sky subscription, but easy enough that he can figure it out once it's set up, without him phoning me every 10 minutes.

 

[banther]

Bump.

£18.99 here;

https://chromeshop.wuaki.tv/uk/checkout/index.html?

Gave me the push to finally do it.

Also - an app for Android called popcorn Time (google for download) is now compatible. Basically the Netflix for streaming.

 

[Keydogg]

Cheers Banter, haven't heard of that before!

Loads of stuff beginning to support chromecast now, it's awesome :-D

 

[Tom]

Android mirroring was launched in beta this week too.

http://chrome.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/mirror-your-android-screen-to-tv-with.html

 

[banther]

Woohoo. Widescreen p**n!

 

[Ol’ Tarby]

Love my chromecast! Got mine plugged into my AV receiver and it's mint for streaming music videos from YouTube when you've got a few people round. Just keep adding videos to the TV playlist and away it goes

 

[Keydogg]

Love my chromecast! Got mine plugged into my AV receiver and it's mint for streaming music videos from YouTube when you've got a few people round. Just keep adding videos to the TV playlist and away it goes

Yes agreed it's fantastic!

 

[Keydogg]

The Android mirroring is pretty awesome tbh! Not sure I'll use it too much but a great addition.

 

[dajones]

I use plex with mine. Only bought it today. Plex puts all my media on a server thingy. I browse the server on my phone and select and "cast" the film to my tv. Brilliant bit of kit. Surprised my tv (bush) puts out enough usb power for it.

 

[Tom]

Now £20

 

[Ol’ Tarby]

Bargain!

Mine has now become redundant since buying a new smart TV.

 

[George182]

Bargain!

Mine has now become redundant since buying a new smart TV.

This ^