I've got a Chromecast; now what?

The same hour that Chromecast dongles became available in Canada, I ordered one. It was so popular that during the ordering process, the shipping date slipped by a day. Curious: we Canadians order from google.ca, pay in Canadian dollars, and yet the product is shipped from the USA. 

Nevertheless, a week later the small box arrived, and upon unpacking it I immediately plugged it into one of the 21" LCD monitors that surround me. Having already read several tutorial-like reviews, I knew what to do; hey, I had already downloaded Chromecast software to my smartphone in anticipation.

First disappointment. The display on the monitor was wonky, with a magenta cast. Not cool.

So I unplugged the dongle and hauled it upstairs to plug into our LCD tv. Correct color, so good.

Second disappointment. I don't have any movies on my Android, so the first thing I tried was a slideshow of photos. There was a 3-4 second gap, a black screen between each photo, as data streamed from phone to dongle. Not cool.

Third disappointment. I installed Avia, an app that streams photos, movies, and music from other networked computers. It works well, except that streamed movies show banded gradient, the result of insufficient data bandwidth.

I gave YouTube a try, and it worked well, as expected, because it works differently. Instead of using the smartphone as the intermediary, the dongle recieves the data direct from YouTube's servers. 

Fourth disappointment. That's it? Chromecast is good only for mimicking photos, moves, and music? Somehow I expected more.

This could be my fault, since I already have more. The same tv to which I attached the Chromecast is also attached an Apple Mac Mini, which does all that I expect from an Internet-connected media device -- albeit at 15x higher price. 

So that's now two Google devices I don't get: Chromebook and Chromecast. I don't understand why Chromebook isn't an Android-powered tablet; but it seems Google figured out that Chromecast needs to be replaced by Android TV box.

I'm placing Chromecast on the shelf with other impractical technological devices whose only purpose was to show what's possible (and not be useful), like that Sony smartwatch.

 

Comments

[Jeff Kunkler]

Hello Mr. Grabowski,

After reading your experience with the Chromecast device and rather quick dismissal of it, I thought I'd give an opposing view, as I find the device quite useful.

Set up for me was a snap. I loaded the app on my Android phone, plugged in the device to my less than stellar Visio LCD television, entered my WiFi password and it quickly connected to my WiFi network. Right away I was able to stream my Hulu and Netflix to the screen, no delay, with perfect picture. YouTube also works well. It is an excellent and low cost alternative to using a Roku or similar device. Once the stream is started, I can then use my phone or tablet (I have a lot of Android devices) as I want without interfering with the stream, as you correctly stated the Chromecast device gets the stream directly from the router. If I want to pause, go back or advance in the stream, I do so on the Android device I'm using just like a remote. It is no slower than what I experience using the Android device standalone for streaming.

I spend time with my daughter sitting on the couch finding science or animal documentary videos from YouTube (not too much, we also go outside and play soccer) and talk about them. We also stream music for her to dance to (she is four).

For $35 dollars, there is no other device that allows me to attach to an HDMI equipped display and connect to a WiFi network then stream my subscriptions. It's simplicity and portability are key elements for me. I look forward to the enhancements that Google is no doubt working on. I highly recommend the Chromecast device. In my experience, far from "impractical".

Sincerely,

Jeff kunkler

[Jsarfati]

Ralph,

I think that you had the wrong expectations. The US$35 Chromecast is NOT a replacement for your US$600 Mac mini.

I recently bought a Chromecast to replace a broken Roku box. We use our Chromecast to Listen to Pandora music, watch Netflix, HBO GO, and youtube videos. The Chromecast works with our Andoid and IOS devices.

Jerry Sarfati
Siemens PLM Software

[Ralph Grabowski]

Bad news for those with a Chromebook running Developer mode of Chrome OS. The latest version breaks the Chromecast extension, so that it cannot broadcast screens to the tv.

[Julianh72]

Ralph,

No, that's not all!

I can only assume that your home WiFi (and / or broadband) is not up to the job, because my experience has been very different, and I LOVE my Chromecast.

I buy / rent movies and TV shows from Google Play, and casting them to the big screen from my phone / tablet works brilliantly. I also use Google Play Music All Access, and casting from my phone / tablet to my HiFi system is a great way of controlling my music. Yes, I know there are innumerable ways of buying / renting music and video content on-line, but at $35, Chromecast is hard to beat, as long as your broadband and WiFi are up to the job.(And it also works with all of my family and friends' phones too, so that we can watch their content as well.)

There are several apps that can cast audio, video and image content from your device, or from anywhere on your home network, to your Chromecast - RealPlayer and Avia are two that are worth a look, but there are several others. It's such a breeze to use Avia on my tablet to browse all of the computers on our home network, find some content, and cast it to the TV - works SOOOOO much better than my Sony "Smart TV's" native interface.

The latest "killer app" for me is that I have enrolled in a couple, of Coursera college / university courses, for which the lectures are available as streaming video. I play the videos on my Samsung Chromebook (which is a very low-cost / low-specced host device), and cast to my Chromecast to watch on my 55" screen. The video lags by about 1/2 second from what I am seeing on my Chromebook screen, but the video quality is good and stutter-free, and the audio is perfectly synched.

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