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Comment by bitsoda | Hacker News Reader

You know what, good for Google. I hate to sound like a child, but Amazon fired the first salvo by dropping the Chromecast a few years back. This move only seems fair.

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Amazon removing the Chromecast from their store was, if anything, verification at the Fire TV was not a product that could succeed on its own.

I love my Chromecast and I buy new models directly from Google, because no matter what Amazon says I know the difference between Google's product, and Amazon's copycat version of it.

Well, for me at least, amazon's copycat worked first time out of the box. Chromecast, alas, turned out to be an expensive plastic brick.

thank goodness that samsung TV's can play from both sources

Until one of them falls out with Samsung, presumably?

pretty much, but since samsung doesnt enter the space of these competitors, it would be silly to have a falling out. Samsung doesnt offer too many competing products with amzn /goog

What issues did you encounter? And how can you call a $35 device "expensive"?

My brother took his to uni and couldn't log into the Wifi - I assume he has to enter uni credentials for it and the Chromecast doesn't support that Wifi authentication model.

Authentication is one issue. The biggest is the fact that UPnP is disabled on many university networks. Chromecast relies on UPnP for device discovery.

For setup, it need to be on the same subnet as the device you're using to register it. Most university networks are split into many subnets making this extremely difficult to do, and use after registration. The best workaround is using a router as a middle man for the phone and chromecast, but it's a pain.

I have a chromecast, but gave up on making it work in university.

As a partial aside, I'm going to gloat about how incredible my alma mater's networking infrastructure and usability is.

Tell me how long it takes you to find explicit instructions on connecting a chromecast from this site[1]. I think most schools are just incredibly bad at managing their network infrastructure, and its really sad.

[1]: http://www.wrecktechs.gatech.edu/

He probably needs to register the mac address with the university dhcp service so that it can get a routable IP address.

University networks used to be pretty wide open but the days where you could just plug into any available Ethernet socket or hop on the wifi anonymously are gone.

We may have a winner here. Universities tend to use this network access control services that block random mac's from connecting.

For mine the Wifi was always gated but ethernet ports were open.

All the sibling posts are interesting – but ultimately wrong.

The Chromecast (or at least when I last tried it) doesn’t support WPA Enterprise, so it can’t use the user/password or user/certificate authentication required by university networks.

This is purely an issue with the Chromecast.

$35 for something that does nothing (a brick) is expensive. I'm not in the habit of throwing away that much money, and there are many other things I could use it on.

Interpreted more literally, $35 is quite expensive for both an actual brick:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/8-in-x-2-1-4-in-x-4-in-Clay-Bric...

And a plastic brick:

https://www.amazon.com/LEGO-DUPLO-Creative-Duplo-Building/dp...

I plugged it in and followed the simple set-up instructions. The process was interrupted because my device required an update.

No surprises there but the update process descended into a continuous loop farce that didn't look like it was ever going to end.

So I put everything back in its box with the intention to try again at some point in future; 2 years later it is still there.

The price was not so high that it warranted an instant return; I intended to have another go when I had more time - just never got around to it.

So yeah, it was expensive in this respect. Maybe I should have persisted but I value my time and don't see why I should waste it on small issues like this.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=chromecast+udate+problem

I noticed amazon offered a better option actually with a LAN connection instead of wi-fi so I opted for this knowing that sending it straight back wouldn't be a problem, if it came to it.

I bought the Chromecast from another UK retailer where a refund would involve a lot more effort..

No offense but I bought a lot of chromecast and even my most tech inept family users have "moved to the tech age" with it and never bother me to get it working.

I'm sure amazon thingy works just as well, but your trouble with it are more anecdotal than the rules.

'...but your trouble with it are more anecdotal than the rules.'

Hence why I said 'for me at least'.

If they would give me an actual controller for the chromecast I might consider it

I have no desire to control my TV with my phone.

I may look into Roku as an alternative to FireTV now though,

I love the Roku. It’s a competitor to the AppleTV in our house. Great device.

I am happy with my Roku Streaming Stick. I have access to every major media provider except Apple and Spotify (who neutered their app earlier this year). My biggest complaint (which isn't applicable to most users) is the limited SDK. I imagine this is why many of the basic video apps look alike.

I'll third the praise for Roku.

The only annoyance is that they put ads on the homescreen, (but that can be blocked at the network level), and that different apps tend to have slightly different/inconsistent UXs, for example pressing "up" while watching Netflix will show you the timeline without pausing, but doing the same in HBO Now will take you back out to the show info page.

The dedicated remotes are nice, though sometimes oddly slow to "wake up". Some models even have headphone jacks on the remote, which can be really handy.

All the versions can be controlled through a really nice Android app, which lets you directly enter text rather than pecking around in a grid keyboard, and also lets you forward audio to your phone/headset instead of the speakers or remote.

Roku, seemingly, accessed my device and disabled side-loading. An unlawful access (unauthorised access, unauthorised modification, both crimes under the Computer Misuse Act in UK).

Put me off an otherwise stellar experience.

>Amazon removing the Chromecast from their store was, if anything, verification at the Fire TV was not a product that could succeed on its own.

Did anyone ever think otherwise? Content is king. Fire stick is just a raspberry pi with half-ass UI built in

But shouldn't Amazon have a content advantage? A metaphorical Raspberry Pi with a better GUI should've been enough.

I interpreted parent's comment to mean Fire TV could not succeed agnostic/irrespective of the content.

Can someone explain this to me.

I bought a Chromecast and took it back the next day, it didn't do anything beyond mirroring content from a particular device (seems everyone who watches needs a device, or you need a 2nd device for a room to be casting from), which any Android device does (including FireTV).

FireTV for me was a million times more useful, I must be missing something?

They fired the second shot when they refused to make anything to stream from a kindle fire to a chromecast. That's literally a "amazon media playing thingy" and it can't stream to the market leader casting device.

I love competition but this to me is a case of "ohh, screw that, just make whatever work with whatever"

> They fired the second shot when they refused to make anything to stream from a kindle fire to a chromecast. That's literally a "amazon media playing thingy" and it can't stream to the market leader casting device.

Actually, Amazon had apps that did this.

Google changed the Chromecast protocol, and demanded that app developers use their proprietary library.

I once had an app that was affected by this, too. The fault is entirely with Google.

Vlc version 4 is now shipping with the ability to cast to a chromecast, without any proprietary library.

Also, amazon makes a tablet is "easy dumb way to consume your media", and while it is not fit for me and probably not for you, it's awesome for the people who know very little and want a recommendation. Yet amazon screwed that up with that move.

What does it matter to them if I use their 40e thingy or google's as long as I buy my media on them. Instead it's revert to Google and buy on Google play.

> Vlc version 4 is now shipping with the ability to cast to a chromecast, without any proprietary library.

VLC actually uses a proprietary library for it, but doesn’t ship it.

Specifically, VLC asks the OS to activate the secondary display, which leads Android to redirect this request to Google Play Services.

This feature does not work on Amazon Kindles, Replicant, LineageOS, CopperheadOS, or any other non-Google Android distributions.

Also, for full Chromecast support, you need to use 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-cast:8.3.+' – which, obviously, is proprietary.

A store can sell whatever it likes, surely?

If a store has become so dominant that it is impossible to compete if you can't get a listing, then shouldn't we be addressing that issue? If Amazon is in the dangerous position of manufacturer/retailer/marketplace owner (not to mention hosting provider) to the detriment of competition then Amazon needs breaking up.

If Google is a content provider/directory/manufacturer to the detriment of consumers then the same is true.

This tit for tat stuff over their sucky streaming sticks is not the issue

Agreed. The thing that pisses me off, is that Amazon video doesn't even support Chromecast for streaming, how hard would it be to code that in? I bought firefly from amazon thinking I could easily stream it to my chromecast, but nope.. -- I won't get amazon video, or support any of there video things till I can.

They need to let bygones be bygones and accept each others apps/gadget/technology to make it so each other is a success. They're more a symbiotic relationship than rivals imho.

> how hard would it be to code that in?

How hard is it to support a protocol that the vendor obfuscates, and changes frequently, to prevent you from streaming to it?

Interesting question. From my own experiences trying to build an open source library to stream to it (and to receive streams): Very hard when the vendor is Google.

The only way to stream to Chromecasts is with Google’s proprietary library, and Google will only license that to Amazon once Amazon kills their own App Store.

Is the last part about licensing true (or sourced from somewhere)? Surely Amazon could just drop the Cast library into their iPhone and Android apps and they’d be all set? I can’t see Google stopping them (well maybe they would now it’s escalated, but they wouldn’t have last year.)

I assumed not supporting Cast was just an excuse not to stock Chromecasts etc on Amazon.

BTW I totally agree with the frustration of the Cast protocol not being more open, a tonne of cool standalone ‘browser on TV’ usecases like screensharing/dashboards/multiscreen aren’t possible on Chromecast (and it sucks). I assume they’re under a load of pressure from MPAA type groups to keep it locked down. (As though the TV is some holy box that must be protected.)

> Surely Amazon could just drop the Cast library into their iPhone and Android apps and they’d be all set?

The cast library doesn’t contain any of the code required to cast – all that code is in the Google Play Services in the system app, not in the library.

And you can obviously understand how Amazon can’t just reuse that.

They could certainly do it in their Android and iOS apps. They can't on their Kindle apps, since Kindle is AOSP-based but not Android.

Android is an OS – specifically, the AOSP projects result, the Google Play services are only available in the Google Play distribution of Android.

So Amazon can’t do it in their Android apps, unless they create a special version for Google Play Android.

But Amazon – like many other developers, including myself – refuses to create different versions for different Android distributions.

Other Android distributions that are also excluded include MIUI, Replicant, LineageOS, CopperheadOS, and Androidx86.

> Android is an OS – specifically, the AOSP projects result,

No, Android is a trademark which designates the branded, proprietary-but-open-core OS developed by Google and licensed to handset and other device makers.

AOSP is an open source codebase which forms part of the codebase of Android.

> So Amazon can’t do it in their Android apps, unless they create a special version for Google Play Android

There is no such thing; that's just Android. Pop

> Other Android distributions that are also excluded include MIUI, Replicant, LineageOS, CopperheadOS, and Androidx86.

No, those are other AOSP-derived OSs, which can run some subset of Android apps.

Receiving stream as if you are a Chromecast in an open source form is not likely to work because DRM.

Interestingly, in the beginning it did. Without any DRM.

Later on, at least YouTube, Play Music, and similar streams worked nicely. This was especially nice because so many apps support the protocol.

Sadly, in the end, I gave up on trying to stream to my computer via that protocol, because almost every week Google broke compatibility, and I was simply pissed.

And the real chromecast I have, I can’t use, because it doesn’t support WPA Enterprise.

can't amazon create a play store bridge where if amazon needs to use a play service it opens the bridge and does it through the other app? Wouldn't work on kindle devices without google play, etc... but fuck those, I just need it to work on my Moto v4. Don't know why Amazon has to control the app store anyways, I much prefer Play and won't buy any amazon devices till they have native support of ALL google apps via google play.

It mostly works for me using Chrome on a MacBook to play Amazon video and casting the tab to Chromecast. However, I do have to disconnect and reconnect the Chromecast occasionally.

Maybe a Roku would be more reliable?

I hate/refuse to cast tabs, it's buggy/ugly and I don't like it personally. If I can't pass the stream to chromecast, I just don't do it. I prefer to do all my streaming from my phone not laptop too, using one of the webcast apps that can cast any web page's videos to chromecast.

Yeah, normally I'd say two wrongs don't make a right, but if this move manages to convince Amazon to finally support Amazon Video on Chromecast, maybe it's worth it.

Though on the other hand, this could just as easily result in a long-term standoff.

I thought that limitation was more on Google's side more than Amazon deciding not to develop an app.

> Amazon fired the first salvo by dropping the Chromecast a few years back

...after Google intentionally changed the Chromecast protocol almost weekly to force app developers to use their proprietary library, and to prevent third-party implementations of the library from working.

There’s dozens of open source implementations of the protocol from that era left on GitHub, all abandoned over the constant changes that were purely done to prevent anyone (Amazon or open source devs) from streaming to Chromecast, or receiving streams, without going through Google’s proprietary library.

Google should probably block amazon from any search results. That should get amazons attention if this does not. Its bad that they are not selling google home mini, chromecast , Nest products. What reason they have for blocking google home mini and Nest . For chromecast - they said it does not play prime video which amazon does not offer support for..

Didn't Google block the ability to stream to Chromecasts? I'm not justifying anyone's behavior here but this is why the "they started it" argument is considered childish. These are all anti-customer moves which will hurt both companies in the long term.

> Didn't Google block the ability to stream to Chromecasts?

IIRC, they made backward incompatible changes to the protocol (which I don't think was ever public, but had been discovered and independently implemented) which effectively broke apps not using the official API implementations (which are limited to Android [Play Services, not AOSP], iOS, and Chrome [not Chromium, AFAIK].)

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