Google Chromecast Review - An Awesome $35 HDMI Dongle
by Brian Klug on July 29, 2013 9:45 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Media Player
- Android
- Mobile
- HDMI
- Chrome
- Tablets
- Chromecast
Conclusions
Chromecast is everything the Nexus Q should’ve been. As its spiritual successor, the Chromecast finally delivers on the promise of an accessory to the Google Play and Chrome ecosystem for the TV. Chromecast works, and it works well, the Netflix and YouTube apps I’ve used from Android since getting it are quick to control the playback functions and reliably discover the Chromecast all the time.
After spending a week tearing my hair out over Miracast (which frankly has the worst interoperability in the entire industry), having Chromecast actually just work was a breath of fresh air. The Chromecast cloud-to-cast architecture makes a lot more sense than other models which try to decode on the phone, then re-encode and ship it over the same network, doubling compression artifacts, increasing battery drain, and requiring good signal. I can see why Google would not even bother including Miracast on the Chromecast at this point, and without a vast improvement to Miracast I frankly don’t even want it anymore.
For the price, the Chromecast is an amazing device that plays surprisingly well with the services it’s compatible with, and for everything else there’s always that browser tab streaming mode. I’d like to see more services added, but for now I’m totally pleased with how it works, so much so that I already bought a second Chromecast to hook up my second 55-inch TV.
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kirsch - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
The licensing implications of Tab casting are interesting to me. Hulu (or more likely Hulu's content providers) cannot be happy and may force Google to somehow disable Chromecast on their website. Or I can dream, and maybe they will realize the futility of making an artificial distinction between clients and will stop the BS.savagemike - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - link
Hulu et al have a bit of a problem though. Since the tab casting is mirroring it never sees the Chromecast directly and should have no way to see anything but the Chrome browser. The Chrome browser is among the most popular in the world.So Hulu and the rest have one play. They can stop their sites from being visible on one of the most popular browsers in the world. Even if they decided to make that play thinking they'd drive people off Chrome to other browsers Google (or whomever) could quite easily make a similar extension for Firefox which also plays well with WebRTC. So hulu would probably end up having to block Chrome and Firefox. That would be insanity for any web company.
In any event I would imagine a firefox extension to work with Chromecast will show up sooner or later.
DesktopMan - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - link
The license restrictions on those services sound insane. Chrome tab casting is pretty much wireless HDMI, does Hulu not work over HDMI in clone mode? What about Miracast?edwpang - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
The USB power meter is pretty useful. What the brand name of it?Thanks
Ritup - Wednesday, July 31, 2013 - link
You can find it here, a good friend designed that.https://www.tindie.com/stores/FriedCircuits/
Donkey2008 - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
To the author - Was "Molybdenum" the name of the device stock or did you come up with that name for it? I have a reason for asking.Brian Klug - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - link
Came up with it, the first one I named Chromey, the second one Molybdenum since, well, periodic table and stuff, I dunno.-Brian
Donkey2008 - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - link
Cool. I work for a company that does moly exploration and I rarely find anyone who knows what molybdenum is or even how to pronounce it (mole-ib-denim).For those who don't understand, molybdenum is better known as "Chrome Moly" (thus the Google reference). Fun, off-topic fact of the day. Derp.
Oh, and Skynet...LOL.
Death666Angel - Wednesday, July 31, 2013 - link
CroMo steel is used pretty regularly in the bike industry. :)bountygiver - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - link
According to what google has been doing, a first party chromecast app for windows 8/RT is not likely to come, but I hope someone can make one as it can be really useful if it is integrated in windows Share/PlayTo(on win8.1).