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Comment by pba | Hacker News Reader

Maybe this was the whole point of the author's post.. but I'm fairly certain the reason the author's use case is not easily workable is because the OEMs mentioned are deliberately discouraging the ability to play anything that is not inside some sort of DRM control. They don't want you to just be able to play any URL. Its not a technical problem, its a content management problem.

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When I first bought a Chromecast I was disappointed how much of a pain it was to play content I already had on my computer. I shouldn't have to spin up a Plex server just to get acceptable streaming capabilities.

The VideoStream chrome plugin is spectacular for this. Of all the chrome plugins I've installed over the years, this is still the only one I continue to donate towards.

https://getvideostream.com/

These days you can cast with VLC which makes this much easier.

You can do this natively with Chrome. Just go to the overflow menu in the top right > Cast... > Sources > Cast file.

AirPlay doesn't have this design philosophy and wouldn't have given this user a problem. Unfortunately AirPlay itself is proprietary and only supported by Apple devices and some TVs.

You know, I was going to reply that the AppleTV isn't a good comparison here because they specifically wanted something that worked with URLs.

But then I thought about it, and the URL thing is a red herring. That's not what they really want -- that's an implementation detail. What they really want is the ability to play something from their local server on their TV. This is totally do-able in the Apple eco-system. The URL thing is exactly what you don't want. Who wants to type a URL into their TV using their phone as a virtual keyboard or not? (Which the AppleTV + iPhone combo does this great too...)

The best option is where you could "cast" any video/media you're watching on a phone or computer up to a TV. The AppleTV + iPhone (or Mac) combo does this great.

AppleTV + iPhone + VLC iOS app will give you the URL option too. I did this to watch Terrace House Boys x Girls Next Door when I ran out of Netflix episodes.

There’s also a VLC app for Apple TV, no need for a phone at all (although you’ll probably want the phone remote to enter the URL).

Chromecast allows you to display any arbitrary url, no?

Also, just to understand, what does Roku get out of blocking your ability to potentially see non-DRM content? Is Neflix going to pull their app if Roku starts displaying urls?

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