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Chromecast

Started by biggytitbo, February 13, 2014, 01:58:46 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

imitationleather

I've got a Roku stick and I think it is absolutely brilliant. Apart from football it's the main thing I use to watch telly now. It's quite a bit more expensive than Chromecast (the basic stick is £49.99, then there's other models which don't really seem to add much more but go all the way up to £99.99) but all the reviews I've read say it's far superior. A year or so back my missus bought a smart TV which was over £750. It's a bit gutting for her that I got a TV for a third of the price and just by adding this fifty quid stick to one of the HDMI slots it's now got more smart TV capabilities than her's and the apps for the Roku are all far better designed than the ones on her actual smart TV They run a lot quicker too. Seriously on the iPlayer app in particular on her TV the lag between pressing buttons and the telly responding can be excruciating and so when scrolling through programmes you end up pressing the button about twenty times, it takes almost a minute to respond and then you go right past what you wanted to watch and have to scroll all the way back again. It's not supposed to be like this in 2014!

Beagle 2

Pissed off I'm doomed to another year of SHITE Talk Talk YouView hell when I use my Chromecast even just to watch BBC live telly because it's so much quicker and easier. When this contract is up it's just freeview and the Chromecast for me. best £30 I ever spent.

buntyman

Quote from: biggytitbo on August 27, 2014, 07:45:06 AM

You can cast the whole tab though, so it'll play anything (just not necessarily directly from the stick itself)

I've tried it out, it does kind of work but it's pretty shite quality and the sound doesn't work very well either :-(
Casting Netflix using Hola doesn't work either so my 2 main requirements of it weren't met. It's still quite a cool thing and pretty slick with normal netflix and iplayer but at the moment it seems like a bit of an unnecessary gadget and i'll have to continue plugging my laptop into the tv.

Steven

Have you tinkered with the tab-casting settings to alter the quality and size? Or buffer the actual video via the java options box? Or it could be also be a WiFi strength issue and you just need to rearrange the router etc, I've casted films and livestreams from tabs fine.

olliebean

Worth bearing in mind that wi-fi quality isn't just a matter of distance from the router. My Roku box increased from averaging 2-3Mbps to 23-24 by moving it a couple of inches. The diagnostic screen was showing over 20,000 glitches/sec in the worse position (under 1000 in the better), so probably one of my other AV devices was creating interference at just that spot.

buntyman

I bought it because I thought it would be an easy, lazy bastard's solution to the problem. Tinkering with quality and DNS settings sounds a lot more trouble than getting off my arse and plugging the laptop into the tv.

olliebean

Back up to 30 quid now at Amazon and Tesco. Hope everyone who wanted one got in while it was £18.

Johnny Textface

If I take it with me to a Premier Inn with Wifi, will I get it to work you reckon?

Sivead

Quote from: buntyman on August 28, 2014, 02:38:51 PM
I bought it because I thought it would be an easy, lazy bastard's solution to the problem. Tinkering with quality and DNS settings sounds a lot more trouble than getting off my arse and plugging the laptop into the tv.

Yeah it's the Silverlight plug-in Skygo uses is not compatible with the Chromecast, maybe Netflix in browser uses it as well. Is there a playback setting in Netflix for HTML5 preference?

mook

Quote from: Johnny Textface on September 01, 2014, 07:41:30 AM
If I take it with me to a Premier Inn with Wifi, will I get it to work you reckon?

part of me wants nothing more.

olliebean

Just got mine today; a bit of a hiccup setting it up as you need to connect to it via wifi, and my PC doesn't have wifi, so I had to set it up via the iOS app instead. Works brilliantly, though. FWIW, I set up my router to block the Google DNS servers in less than a minute using the instructions at that link I posted (the router was already set up to use Ad-Free Time's DNS, but that's also an easy tweak), and it works perfectly for multi-region Netflix.

Consignia

Quote from: Johnny Textface on September 01, 2014, 07:41:30 AM
If I take it with me to a Premier Inn with Wifi, will I get it to work you reckon?

It depends, I think you'd have to set it up again to use their wi-fi, but if they use one of those schemes where you have to go through a login page first (like one of those BT managed ones), you are probably out of luck. There's probably ways round it, but I'm willing to bet it'll be a lot of arsing around.

olliebean

I gather some of those hotel/coffee shop type wifi networks have the router set up not to allow communication between devices on the network, in which case, no, it wouldn't work. The router has to have AP/Client Isolation disabled.

Steven

I remember the TVs in Premier Inn didn't have a HDMI port, or at least it was blocked off, so no Chromecast. But I was able to use pirate movie sites to watch films on my laptop with gay abandon so everything isn't blocked off.

biggytitbo


Steven

No he's the homosexual brother of this bloke.

Johnny Textface

I didn't bother in the end.  Surely all hotels rooms should have streaming capabilities as standard. 

olliebean

Deezer has disappointed me. Thought it was going to be a castable alternative to Spotify; turns out only premium subs support Chromecast. Would've been nice if the app had told me that, instead of just sitting there after what turned out to be a 7 day trial had expired, indefinitely pretending it was just about to start working.

So that leaves the free options for music as Google Play for music I own, and Pandora for music discovery. Anyone know of a free Spotify-like castable service for checking out specified artists or albums before deciding whether to buy? I suppose I could use the Spotify web player and cast the tab, but it seems like a kludge and tab casting hogs my CPU.

Queneau

Isn't VLC supposed to be getting the Chromecast treatment soon?

Johnny Textface

There tends to be a lot of music on youtube - but appreciate it's not ideal and tends to vary wildly in quality.  Hmm, If they made Spotify chromecast-able and Google made a nice stereo system with built in Chromecast support we'd be onto a bit of a winner.

olliebean

If Spotify ever supports it I bet it'll just be for paid accounts, like Deezer.

FWIW, www.soundtracker.fm seems like a decent castable Pandora alternative that works in the UK without messing about with DNS or proxies. The free version only allows 10 stations and 6 skips/hour, but it's easy enough to recreate a station if you deleted it to make room for another.

Squink

Quote from: Johnny Textface on September 03, 2014, 07:52:38 PM
I didn't bother in the end.  Surely all hotels rooms should have streaming capabilities as standard.

Susan? Can you make pornography come on my telly please?

Lfbarfe

I was looking at getting a Chromecast, primarily for streaming video files from my office PC to the downstairs TV, but a mate alerted me to Sky's NowTV box. It costs a tenner, you don't need to subscribe to anything, and it's basically a cut-down Roku LT. You hack it into developer mode and install Plex for streaming. So, for a tenner, you get a media streamer with iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD, Demand 5, YouTube, Vimeo, etc. No Netflix or anything like that, but at this price, who cares? I can't see how Sky are selling these for a tenner without them being a loss leader in the hope you'll subscribe. Effectively, you are taking money from Rupert Murdoch. Have I sold the concept hard enough yet?

small_world

This might be the thing for me.

I've got a SeaGate NAS thingy, with loads of good films on.
I want to share these films with my parents, but they live in their own house.

My Mam has an Android phone.
I've got an app on mine that means I can download the stuff from my NAS when I'm out and about.

Could my Mam download the same app, I'd give her the security settings, then could she stream the stuff from her phone to a Chromecast?

Is there an easier way of doing this?
They don't have a smart TV, only one with HDMI inputs.


Uncle TechTip

If you get Louis' now tv box and install Plex on it, and on your NAS box, it could be done, your mum could watch your stuff over the net. Just be careful which folders you share.

biggytitbo

Quote from: Lfbarfe on September 12, 2014, 04:55:59 PM
I was looking at getting a Chromecast, primarily for streaming video files from my office PC to the downstairs TV, but a mate alerted me to Sky's NowTV box. It costs a tenner, you don't need to subscribe to anything, and it's basically a cut-down Roku LT. You hack it into developer mode and install Plex for streaming. So, for a tenner, you get a media streamer with iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD, Demand 5, YouTube, Vimeo, etc. No Netflix or anything like that, but at this price, who cares? I can't see how Sky are selling these for a tenner without them being a loss leader in the hope you'll subscribe. Effectively, you are taking money from Rupert Murdoch. Have I sold the concept hard enough yet?

It's just not as good as chromecast though. I can' browse the proper YouTube site or app on my phone, tablet or computer, see something I like and bang, it's on my telly. And I can literally find any form of video available on the internet and send it to my telly with zero fuss. And the best thing about chromecast isn't even promoted a a selling point. If I'm watching something on chromecast on my telly, and I want to go have a bath or a long poo, I can press the chromecast button in the app on my tablet and bang, the thing I was just watching on my telly is now playing on my tablet from the moment I left off. It's amazing.

Steven

Quote from: biggytitbo on September 12, 2014, 09:19:20 PM
It's just not as good as chromecast though. I can' browse the proper Bella Emberg Porn site or app on my phone, tablet or computer, see something I like and bang, it's on my telly. And I can literally find any form of Bella Emberg video available on the internet and send it to my telly with zero fuss. And the best thing about chromecast isn't even promoted a a selling point. If I'm wanking over Bella Emberg Porn on chromecast on my telly, and I want to go have a wank during a long poo, I can press the chromecast button in the app on my tablet and bang, the Bella Emberg Porn I was just wanking over on my telly is now playing on my tablet from the moment I left off. It's amazing.

FTFY

biggytitbo

Quote from: Steven on September 12, 2014, 09:49:20 PM
FTFY


You think that's funny don't you? There's nothing funny about this -





Sex, Sex.

Lfbarfe

Quote from: biggytitbo on September 12, 2014, 09:19:20 PM
It's just not as good as chromecast though.

It's 10 quid versus 30 quid. I can see that the Chromecast is a fine piece of kit, but the NowTV box is a mind-buggering bargain with the added bonus of stiffing Rupert Murdoch.

olliebean

No way to get Netflix on the Now TV though, afaiaa?