Google TV Chromecast

[Hand Solo]

https://store.google.com/gb/product/chromecast_google_tv

I've had one for about a week, annoying things is it can't be powered off the TVs USB port so you have to plug it in to the wall.

Also for some bizarre reason there's no Play Store option on the home screen.. you can access some categorised apps from a small list that are from the Play Store but you have to search for stuff using a specific app name you have in mind to find it, there's no browsing. You can get to the Play Store by using the Voice Assistant and ASKING it to show the Play Store though, bizarre. Think I will knock-up an Icon for the Play Store I can put on the Home screen somehow in future. Also no All 4 for some reason, iPlayer, ITV, Netflix, Prime, Disney etc, but no Channel4 stuff, why? They might be still working on the app unless there's a rights-issue argument going on. Might try and sideload the All 4 app from off my phone or something, other than you have to get something up on another device then Cast it over to the telly. I have a USB stick in my router acting as local Cloud Storage so I essentially use Explorer on my laptop to send any music or movies over to that and then I can stream them off of the TV using Kodi, Media Monkey, VLC or any bobbins you like.

Bluetooth is good, but I've tried using bluetooth headphones for some stuff, Netflix is OK with a tiny delay but Youtube and other things the delay is massive and annoying. Also I've been using a bluetooth gamepad to play games (which apart from a small amount of titles categorised as Must Have Games are deliberately hidden and you have to use the Play Store and know the name of the game ahead of time and search for it to download it) and a Bluetooth keyboard and touchpad work fine, I've been playing Thimbleweed Park with a bluetooth touchpad on a giant Samsung HD telly (which had been sitting in the corridor of some friends every time I went over and they kept saying they were going to scrap it so I eventually turned up with a car to take it away, there's nothing wrong with it he just said he had problems getting HD to work with his Xbox or something.)

The remote is good and there are a few accessible games that use the remote, and voice commands work well and it can tune into the TV so you can control the volume, on/off and AV source etc. What it pretty much does is aggregate everything to one big screen, so you have suggestions from Netflix, Prime, BBC, Disney, Youtube all at the tip of your finger, as well as the ability to cast anything off other devices just like with the normal Chromecast. Apparently if you have a Youtube TV subscription (I've not tried it yet) it's a deal-killer. There was a big promo to subscribe to it and you'd get a Google TV Chromecast free which I tried but it was for US customers only.

What else? It's just really easy to use and even my 78 year old dad has been faffing about on it and get stuff on by browsing or using the Voice Assistant built into the remote. We've had a Chromecast for years but he could never get his head round having to Cast stuff from off his iPad even though I've showed him.

[Hand Solo]

It's USB-C, and there's only 4GB storage.. so I have to pick and choose what I install, can't have too many games and apps on there which I suppose is why Google have made them difficult to access to focus more on streaming stuff. Thing is you can get a USB-C hub as long as it's a decent wattage - this thing needs more power than regular USB devices draw - and you can plug more USB storage in, plus other things that come on hubs like maybe an Ethernet port or headphone jack so you can stream 4K stuff more easily than over WiFi, other USB accessories like aforementioned mouse, keyboard, gamepad or a webcam and you can do conference calls over the TV.

The storage is more my issue atm I'm going to see if there's any way I can get it kick over large apps to the USB stick plugged into my Wifi, but I doubt it as it seems an Android permissions nightmare.

Anyway with the hub kit removing any lag from 4K streaming, headphones, mouse, gamepad etc you could conceivably use something like Google Stadia to ditch your expensive gaming PC. I'm OK playing less processor-heavy games using bluetooth accessories but y'know, for your rabid gamer it's a different kettle-of-sick.

[Hand Solo]

Only messed around with a few games stuff so far as I'm a very casual gamer these days after being an utter gaming nut as a kid/teen.

Anyway, Thimbleweed Park on my free Samsung telly:



Oceanhorn, isometric 3d Zelda-lite Android game I downloaded off the Play Store:



And I found a fairly easy to use Emulator 'RetroArch' that does most stuff but I've been using MAME only so far:



Strider:



Ghost N' Goblins, going to look forward to getting my mate who plays all the latest Xbox stuff to try and get anywhere through this utter cunt of a game that's as hard as I remember it being:



Not tried any of the latest Android 3d things or Nintendo 64 or Wii stuff yet, I'm guessing anything above N64 level emulation will crawl. Still, not bad considering Google haven't advertised this for any form of gaming at all. But it can obviously do that as well as all the telly stuff.

[Dex Sawash]

Tempted to buy for the feature that puts all your available titles from all sources on one screen. Does that work ok? Can see it not really helping at all or still being slow to load titles once chosen.

One day after I bought youtube tv sub (so wife could watch french open) they were giving you one of these free, the cunts.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Tempted to buy for the feature that puts all your available titles from all sources on one screen. Does that work ok? Can see it not really helping at all or still being slow to load titles once chosen.

One day after I bought youtube tv sub (so wife could watch french open) they were giving you one of these free, the cunts.

No chance of cancelling then signing up with your wife's account or whatever?

[Hand Solo]

Tempted to buy for the feature that puts all your available titles from all sources on one screen. Does that work ok? Can see it not really helping at all or still being slow to load titles once chosen.

It does actually work well for me because I have things like a Prime account but always forget to look for anything on it, so stuff popping up now tempts me like I had no idea the new Borat movie opened straight away on there but it just showed up on the banner at the top so I watched it last week. Same with other things from iPlayer or ITV with programmes and movies etc, I don't just sit there watching regular TV and pretty much do everything OnDemand.. just waiting on Ch4 to finish their app because they have a decent archive and decent movies showing up. I've just timed it loading selections from the main screen and something from iPlayer loaded in about 2 seconds, Netflix takes longer.. about 5 - 10, similar with Prime, because they've got to load the whole store hidden in the background while putting the selection on.. but that's from booting up so once the app is loaded in the background it's much quicker.. 3 or 4 seconds at most.

As for using it as a console emulator, it seems to do a bit beyond what I thought it could, going up to Sega Saturn and PSP, I'm guessing it must be able to do some less complex Gamecube or Wii emulation if it can handle them (?), but haven't tried yet.

This guy goes over the emulation ability and game streaming with Stadia, Steam and GeForce Now etc, it seems to be able to stream games very well with only a slight bit of latency because of the bluetooth controller. Stadia isn't out for it officially until next year but you can copy the mobile app across from elsewhere and it still works.

[Hand Solo]

No chance of cancelling then signing up with your wife's account or whatever?

Possibly.. Just to remind anyone it's an America only deal.. The Verge reported a couple of weeks ago:

Google just announced a new Chromecast yesterday, and the company is already offering a good deal on one — all you have to do is sign up for YouTube TV and pay for one month of the service. If you want to take advantage of the deal, you should be able to access it here.

You can only take advantage of this if you're a first-time YouTube TV subscriber, according to the deal's terms. You then have to make a payment toward your YouTube TV subscription between October 15th and December 31st in order to receive the offer for the free Chromecast. And the deal is only available in the US.

You should also know that paying $64.99 for one month of YouTube TV costs more than just buying the new Chromecast on its own for $49.99. But if you've had your eye on both YouTube TV and the new device, this could be a great deal for you.

[Hand Solo]

BTW the main screen is also useful because as well as aggregating everything from all your services including YouTube content it will show which service the title of a show or movie is on and the Rotten Tomato score, once clicked it also will show a silent trailer, description, classification, runtime etc options to watch now, or show which other services it's available on, or where to rent or buy from if it isn't, as well as cast and crew and recommended similar titles. You can like or dislike titles as well to promote more content you like being listed first. There's also a dedicated aggregated Watch List that you can add to from any service or from your pc or phone, or things that aren't available yet and it will notify you when they are. Useful as there's usually loads of stuff I've meant to check out then completely forget about, then have been sitting there with a blank screen and blank mind and end up putting on something I've seen before because I can't think of anything at 1am.

The Rotten Tomato score is especially useful because I'm always going to there before I put on anything from Netflix or whatever as there is a lot of garbage to pad out the premium content.

[Dex Sawash]

No chance of cancelling then signing up with your wife's account or whatever?

That would guarantee forgotten logon details and eternal yttv sub.

Got a $17 fire stick coming to see if I am clever enough to load a VPN on it (supposed to be some in the firestick channel store)

[Sebastian Cobb]

That would guarantee forgotten logon details and eternal yttv sub.

Got a $17 fire stick coming to see if I am clever enough to load a VPN on it (supposed to be some in the firestick channel store)

Yes I saw you can do that now. I used to manually run it through a raspberry pi to do the same thing but I've not had much cause to as Netflix don't seem to host as much non-Netflix stuff on it anymore.