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Comment by thom | Hacker News Reader

While I am not proud of this, Chromecast is a fairly core part of mine and my family's routine each week. It's one of probably only two consumer technologies that I've found transformative in the last ten years, the other being Apple Pay. It'd certainly be interesting if there were an viable open alternative, but it seems unlikely that NymphCast is going to make a debut in the Netflix app anytime soon. I'd probably settle for a good Firefox implementation of the Chromecast protocol, but that's obviously missing the point here.

Also as an aside, AngelScript's is another of these programming language sites where sample code seems to be more than three clicks away from the homepage. I will admit I gave up before finding any.

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Chromecast is the killer product that drives our home's media use.

It just works. It's accessible to anyone with their phone. The UI are the phone apps. It plus a few subscription services makes every other media box obsolete for us.

I got a Roku tv last month. For jokes I turned on WiFi and tried out the built in streaming. Just terrible. Great for people without phones, but who else would want that kind of experience?

I was happy with my chromecasts, until one of them stopped working on one screen. It boots up, google logo does its thing and then its black. Device can be communicated to, and resets do not work. I have read that this is HDCP related and that using a chinese hdmi splitter works... The device works fine on my Dell monitor, and I am not using any extension cable...

Maybe I need to give it another shot, I switched to the built in Roku functionality because I couldn't stand the phone player disconnecting from the chromecast. It would always take me at least 30 seconds to pause anything; with the Roku I have a dedicated remote that works every time instantly, and it handles both the on/off and the media.

Be mindful of the telemetry being sent back from your Roku device (can be blocked with pi-hole).

For me the play/pause buttons on my TV remote work even if the app is disconnected.

Really? I find other media players so much easier to use. I hate having to use my phone to control the player; I can't look at my phone for things and control the media at the same time. Switching back to whatever app I was using often find I have lost the connection, and it takes a good number of seconds to re-connect and gain control.

I also find it really hard to fast forward and rewind... I never get the responsiveness that I get on my XBOX, and I can't rewind and fast forward with nearly the precision, either.

>I never get the responsiveness that I get on my XBOX, and I can't rewind and fast forward with nearly the precision, either.

Comparing a $30 dongle and a multi hundred dollar computer seems a tad unfair. I'm not buying an xBox for my mom to watch Netflix.

Sure, but the person I was responding to didn't talk about the price factor at all; they simply stated it was the best media player.

Get her a Raspberry Pi with Kodi instead.

I leave it in the guest room, so it rarely gets much use, but for a short while I was using an Android TV and it was the best of both worlds. You'd have the Chromecast support in every app, but you could still use the Android TV remote to pause and track back/forward depending on which app it was streaming. Really a good experience!

Chromecast has gotten a lot better about not losing connection in the last few years, or maybe it's because I have Pixel phones.

If you have Google Home, the voice control is awesome. I feel like I'm in the future every time I tell it to pause.

I’m the opposite. I used Chromecast for years and it always put me in a foul mood to fiddle with broken and slow apps on my phone.

Ended up getting a Roku and couldn’t be happier. Only issue I ever have is misplacing the remote.

There are apps you can download that let your phone function as a Roku remote. I misplaced my remote a while ago, so I've opted to use romote.

I love Chromecast for myself but it's tough to let my 5 year old control what show to watch - at least without handing him a laptop or iPad which isn't ideal!

> It just works.

I oddly did not have this experience at all. I could never get audio working properly, and then the Chromecast would make every other input to my TV randomly flash black if the Chromecast was plugged in. Returned to Best Buy after a couple days of wasted time and effort.

I will not disagree with you on AngelScript's documentation being rather lacking. While implementing the runtime support is doable for an experienced developer like myself, I would not want to inflict it on a junior dev. Ditto for learning to use AngelScript from just the official documentation.

I'm currently working on a dedicated website for NymphCast (to be launched over the coming weeks/months), that will contain development guides for NymphCast apps and kin, as well as some AngelScript tutorials and references.

Since it's a hobby project at this point, any timescale I can give is relative of course :)

(I'm the NymphCast author)

why "not proud"?

Life is too short to struggle with basic stuff like watching Netflix when you want to relax.

I'm in a similar situation. I come home from work. My girlfriend and I watch some stuff on YouTube via Chromecast to unwind. Firstly, it's a brain drain and time suck in most of the ways that TV was for everyone in the same routine 20 years ago. Just because it's a smart device doesn't mean that it's any less of an idiot box as the television. Secondly, watching gives power to YouTube/Google when they are despicable companies

> it's a brain drain and time suck in most of the ways that TV was for everyone in the same routine 20 years ago

I mean, I won't claim I never lose time on YT same as I used to on TV, occasionally, but as far as "brain drain" and "time suck" are concerned, it kinda depends on what you're into. I spend countless hours watching tech talks, math/sci news and teachings, podcasts with my heroes (on AI, CS, philosophy..) Some of it (most I'd say) helps in my work (not by chance, ofc).

Nowadays is by far the best audiovisual average quality of content I've ever had in my life (37 here), because I have the choice of what and when (even where & how with a phone). And it's not like I could ever watch all that's worthy so I can select with excruciatingly high standards (my motto with most media: consume only the very best, ditch everything else: you still won't have enough time to run of content, ever).

I think ultimately it's more about control, decisions we make for ourselves, provided the options are there (e.g. couldn't help but eat TV shit on some hours; can't blame myself for having rest time at the 'wrong' hour of TV, hence why I played so much video games back then maybe, which are much 'easier' and deeper time vortexes than any other video form content, IME).

I say, 'when in doubt, read a book'. Can't go wrong with doing that even if the book is mediocre.

I agree with this. I feel my personal viewing is much more directed these days. If I want to zombie out for a whole day it's just as likely to be a chess tournament on Twitch as anything else, and when there's nothing on I'm much quicker to give up and do something else rather than channel hop as in the old days.

I don't doubt there's a lot of great content on YT but it sucks for exploring and finding it.

Do you want to recommend anything on your list of good content channels?

Fair point; sure, there you go. (in no particular order, I'm probably forgetting many greats)

### Tech:

- Lex Fridman — AI podcast: hall of fame of AI speaks there, and I really like Lex. https://www.youtube.com/user/lexfridman

- EngineerMan is one of the best teachers out there for the "get it done" simple PoC stuff — lots of cool tricks, crystal clear explaining. Mostly devops / system. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrUL8K81R4VBzm-KOYwrcxQ

- lots of conferences (all talks) get posted, so I tend to watch enough of those (not the 'big' marketing stuff like Google, more specific tech or domain driven like some language, paradigm, product...). It's my way to keep in touch with many of these spaces without spending more than a few hours per year: from the mouth of the lion (main keynote is usually 'enough' for the 20% effort). E.g. I heard Rob Pike maybe 6 months ago, so I know where Go is at on its ~10-year journey so far. It's also a great way to discover in-depth features when you're digging into a topic (again ideally, 1 as-fast-as-possible talk from developer themselves). You generally have to seek the relevant channel, e.g. for Pycon 2019 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxs2IIVXaEHHA4BtTiWZ2mQ/vid...

- Coding Tech posts a lot of talks from all around the programming scene, and the curation is surprisingly good (some talks are really awesome, maybe half is quite decent). https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtxCXg-UvSnTKPOzLH4wJaQ

- Level1Techs (and Level1Linux): Wendell is a nerd like us, but he's smarter and funnier at it than most. I love this guy. Real, real good perspectives. https://www.youtube.com/user/teksyndicate

- ServeTheHomeVideo: from the same website, a reference for all things DIY server (and frankly IT in most SMBs). https://www.youtube.com/user/ServeTheHomeVideo

- Gary Explains: he's just the best for all things mobile, ARM, etc. (very high-level, but he knows programming and sysadmin so he's not shallow like most popular YouTubers with those topics) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRjSO-juFtngAeJGJRMdIZw

### Science, math:

- Isaac Arthur, possibly the best "aggregator" of hard sci-fi concepts, I've binged so much on his channel. Love the spirit. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g

- Anton Petrov is the best astrophysics and related science news I've ever had (10 minutes a day is enough for me). Almost real-time with papers, and plenty of skill to explain the stuff simply. A really "wonderful person"! https://www.youtube.com/user/whatdamath

- Dr. Becky, same as Anton Petrov, cool astrophysics. She studies galaxies! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYNbYGl89UUowy8oXkipC-Q

- the whole "-phile" suite — Computerphile, Numberphile, etc. Selectively, when I like the topic. https://www.youtube.com/user/Computerphile

- PBS Space Time, probably the best layman content to understand theories in astrophysics, and Matt is awesome. He studies black holes! (also consider PBS Infinite series which is inactive now). https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7_gcs09iThXybpVgjHZ_7g

- 3Blue1Brown, obviously, selectively for topics I need/like. (but I tend to binge his stuff because it's so good)

- Channels like MIT OpenCourseWare for lectures. https://www.youtube.com/user/MIT

- TED is not what it used to be, but worth watching a few sometimes (TEDx has disappointed me too many times with clickbait (waste of my time), so I really avoid it now unless someone human recommends a video).

- Talks at Google has some interesting stuff sometimes. https://www.youtube.com/user/AtGoogleTalks

- People like Socratica (math, Python), Andrew Dotson (physics), Zach Star (math), Kai Hendry (Linux, AWS..), "Machine Learning with Phil". It fluctuates in time as I discover new people or as their content becomes boring to me.

- Special mention for Robert Miles, AI safety researcher at Cambridge iirc. It's mostly abstract math / philo stuff (that funny boundary between the two), and really mind-blowing at times (I mean literally, not the smoking gun, just your mind melting down from thinking through the problem). I'm in awe at the talent of this young dude, so fluent with such topics. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLB7AzTwc6VFZrBsO2ucBMg

### More general stuff:

- Stefan Mischook has the best freelancer (and beginner developer) advice you can find, imho. He's a legit down-to-earth guy with a knack for telling it like it is in simple words. https://www.youtube.com/user/killerphp

- Joe Rogan, because why not! Selectively (mostly philo/sci guests and maybe 1% of his MMA-related stuff). https://www.youtube.com/user/PowerfulJRE

- these days I'd get informed on the coronavirus from doctors directly, e.g MedCram https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quDYb_x54DM

### Some music I like, examples of channels concepts:

- COLORS (really artful uncut live video recordings from up and going artists) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2Qw1dzXDBAZPwS7zm37g8g

- InYourChill (background) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncxHd8o_VhhHAJ7QqB5azg

I also watch a few musicians who do impressive stuff, but that's more fleeting, no real sticker here for me. Just impressed at all the tatent out there!

### For fun:

- The Daily Show with Trevor Noah https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwWhs_6x42TyRM4Wstoq8HA

- Last Week Tonight with John Oliver https://www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight

_____

My MO is simple: I only look at my "subscription" page (ignore the 'home' page with suggestions most of the time). Occasionally, I'll look at the right pane suggestions and try things, but I'm quick to close the tab if it doesn't feel genuine.

Also, lots of backtracking. When I discover a channel that's great, I'll just spend months going through the catalog...

Eh, parenting is a somewhat competitive sport, I guess. You go through phases of boasting how your little ones aren't interested in cartoons and just want to do maths puzzles, followed by periods where you just want to dump them in front of the TV for ten minutes while you try and remember who your wife is.

Seconding your AngelScript complaint. It took me 10+ clicks to find actual code, and then it was only snippets.

Somehow developers seem bad at putting themselves in the "customer's" shoes. So many GitHub Readme files filled with release notes, dependencies, donation requests, and installation instructions before telling what the repo actually does!

So many repo sites are like this. GitHub/GitLab are honestly some of the only ones that really put the code front and center, making it easy to explore. SourceForce, Launchpad, etc, they all have such horrible UX.

I want to chime in that AirPlay had been doing this on iOS for almost three years (Nov 2010 vs July 2013) before Chromecast came around and is largely seen as a superior experience.

The 35$ small and minimal dongle was really the game changer I think. I remember when it first came out it even came with 3 months (30$) worth of netflix subscription too, making it basically free. Back then I played with a bunch of different HTPC solutions and I don't think anything below 100$ existed.

No they didn't. AirPlay streamed the screen from your idevice, huge difference.

To be fair, that's one of the things Chromecast supports (screen/desktop/tab casting of mobile, desktop, or browser content); of course, direct-to-player streaming of online content controlled by web/mobile app is the preferred mode for most things and it's what is meaningful for most media consumption.

Doesn't AirPlay do rerouting to?

It does now, but not when Chromecast arrived

How do you use AirPlay to cast to your TV? You need to buy an Apple TV?

Many 2018+ TVs have firmware updates for Apple TV app and some of them got AirPlay 2 functionality too :)

AirPlay mirrors your device, which means you can no longer use it during playback and will drain its battery fairly quickly. You're also subject to network lag.

Chromecast simply sends commands to the TV/speaker, which does the streaming directly from source. You can use your device for something else.

Airplay can also be used to stream video.

I'm not quite sure what the innovation was for Apple pay - just that they put it on a phone?

In the UK it means I can do contactless payments in excess of £30. I now no longer carry a wallet or have to remember a PIN, and at the same time I have zero anxiety about security. I could live without it, but it's something I use every day and think is more or less perfectly formed.

Not having an iPhone, I only use Apple Pay on web, and there, it's very nice. It uses its own UI/UX during checkout for your personal/shipping/payment info, which is standardized, and almost always nicer than random retailers' websites, and doesn't give your credit card number to the retailer.

Yes! Just not having to type my address is a bonus.

The required open protocol already exists along with support in Netflix and some other apps, DIAL. What is needed is a convenient packaging of a DIAL server along with an open platform for developing applications for use on the TV.

Doesn't DIAL simply cover "Discovery And Launch"?

As I understand it, even the Netflix TV client has custom extensions to perform more than the most basic functionality.

You also need to get that app approved onto the TV, which, chances are, require an update. Sadly that means that you're likely never getting support for the majority of the devices already in the field.

DIAL's time has come and gone. Adoption during the SmartTV hey day 5+ years ago may have made it a contender.

DIAL provides discovery, launch and provides a mechanism to establish connectivity between the client app and the app running on the media device. This functionality and a open development platform for apps on the media device are the key functionality required.

There is no need to get anything approved onto a TV. The apps would run on a media device, such as a Raspberry Pi with the appropriate software, connected via HDMI to the TV just as the Chromecast does.

A lot of TVs already support DIAL, unfortunately about the only streaming services that support it are Netflix and YouTube.

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