New Chromecast apps for the holidays | Hacker News Reader

New Chromecast apps for the holidays

chrome.blogspot.com

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when is the chromecast app going to allow me to just select any video that i view on the internet and click the symbol to stream? I know their big worry is probably pirated movies, but that's not what i want. it's for porn.

iOS (720p) or OS X (1080p) AirPlay video mirroring is what you're looking for.

Mavericks even lets you use an AirPlay display (read: AppleTV) as a fully independent 1080p monitor, not just a mirror.

Mirroring from another device is not the same as streaming from a TV connected device. It requires active participation from the mirroring device.

Streaming from a TV connected device with arbitrary content restrictions is silly.

Freedom and whatnot.

The freedom to leave the house and to preserve your battery life is another issue. I often fling videos to my chrome cast for my kids remotely. AirPlay style mirroring is wasteful of bandwidth, battery, it double compresses streams, and adds latency.

It's a fallback of last resort IMHO.

The chromecast already let's you directly stream the contents of a chrome tab. He's looking for something less clunky.

Related to AppleTV: I've been using Beamer.app (http://beamer-app.com/) to stream unsupported content to AppleTV. It's a premium product, but it was worth the $15 (or thereabouts).

Far from ideal, and not exactly what you requested, but instructions to play videos from your phone appear to be here (involves rooting the Chromecast, and having a rootable Chromecast...): http://youtu.be/NTcyBwT2EIU

If you just want porn you can cast an entire tab to your ChromeCast and just fullscreen the video. Works fine with sites like Twitch.TV too.

Tabcasting currently only works with PCs, and not with Android. Android support is coming soon though.

Tabcasting also has godawful performance for me on Linux (running on a chromebook pixel no less). I assume the problem is they are doing software encoding of your tab instead of hardware, but I haven't investigated this.

People have been clamoring for this type of feature ever since the CC and its SDK were announced.

There was a hackathon this weekend for the SDK and people hoped this would finally be when the SDK would be open for everyone but nope :(

I gave up and bought a 30 ft DVI to HDMI cable. Then "DISPLAY=:0.1 mplayer -fs whatever" just works. Cheaper than the Chromecast, too.

Replace your "Chromecast" with any generic USB Linux computer and your wish will be granted.

I humbly suggest that you back AIRTAME on IndieGoGo[0] - the tagline is, "Wireless HDMI for everyone". It allows you to mirror a computer screen, or use it as a second desktop. $89 to back, plus $15 for shipping if you live outside of Denmark. The project is fully funded, so although there are no guarantees given the crowdfunding model, this is a reasonable horse to back.

EDIT: Just want to add that I am not affiliated with this project. I have backed them, so I suppose I have an interest in it being very successful to make it more likely that I will receive a product.

[0]: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/airtame-wireless-hdmi-for-...

From http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/10/5196076/chromecast-suppor...

The full list of apps that have added Chromecast support today includes: Songza, Vevo, Plex, Red Bull.TV, Revision 3, PostTV, Viki, BeyondPod, RealPlayer Cloud, Avia

Note: Plex-support is currently only for PlexPass subscribers.

http://elan.plexapp.com/2013/12/06/plex-on-the-chromecast-it...

If it had Amazon Prime, it would be a perfect match for me. Until then, Roku.

If only Roku had Youtube, and if only either could do networked files reasonably at the moment...

I currently have a chromecast, a roku, and a raspi plugged into my tv. An absurd setup, I really need to invest some time into figuring out something sane.

I recently bought a Roku 3 and paired it with a FreeNAS server running the Plex media server. Add the Plex channel on the Roku and you get the network file support + Youtube. Getting Plex + Roku setup been the best thing I've done on my home network in years!

The "New" labels on http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/chromecast/apps... only have "-webkit-transform: rotate(45deg);" set, breaking the design on non-webkit browsers. :(

Reminds me of the early days of CSS3 demos where people would only use the -webkit prefix and not bother to use the other vendor prefixes or even the standard non-prefix property name.

Not great. I'll make sure this is fixed soon. Thanks for the heads up.

Fixed.

Thanks, Paul!

I just wish I could broadcast from VLC.

I'd love this feature! I might be wrong, but I think the VLC devs have to incorporate this using the Chromecast api's? Anyone with the knowledge care to enlighten us?

EDIT: Seems like the API only works for Android, iOS and Chrome https://developers.google.com/cast/reference/

Deployed military (any nation) or other people with slow or no internet connection would really like to stream movies locally[1] to several screens. They probably bought the movies too. Sure, chromecast can do this via tab sharing, but an app would be nice. Why the obsession for streaming over the internet?

[1] http://www.theonion.com/articles/pentagon-loses-hard-drive-w...

Hate to share the link again (mentioned above) and seem spammish, but this seems like Avia's primary use case.

Plex support! That's huge.

Though, truth be told, my 3 year old Samsung SmartTV is how I've been streaming Plex already, so...

Oh cool, I never heard of Viki previously. I watch some Korean TV shows like Running Man, but was previously forced to stream the whole Chrome tab.

> Korean TV shows like Running Man

I googled this and was relieved to see it isn't actually a TV show that involves gladiators hunting down and killing prisoners.

To use Plex, you need to have a plexpass subscription (I believe this subscription is not required to use Plex on Roku)

Only until the PlexPass exclusivity window runs out. It's a (cheap) carrot for you to support Plex development.

If only they'd make it a DLNA Digital Media Renderer. You'd then have many choices for playing local content, instead of just Plex.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Living_Network_Alliance

It looks like what Avia offers is some form of DLNA: http://aviatheapp.com/ (scroll, and it's not clear whether they let you grab and then point the renderer at Chromecast or what)

I was playing with this a bit earlier today.

It's a $3 in-app purchase to enable casting. It was a little wonky (seems like it took a while for the app and the chromecast talk nicely (I'd select the chromecast in aVia and nothing would happen), it took a reboot of both devices to sort it out).

Some media (served by Serviio running on a FreeNAS box) worked flawlessly. Some didn't have audio. Haven't spent any time troubleshooting the audio issue.

If you're seeing video playback without audio, it's likely a ChromeCast codec issue.

Your best shot at getting that to work well is to transcode your file to have a different audio stream codec using something like Handbrake.

That's my guess as well.

Fortunately Serviio can transcode on the fly, so it may just be a matter of sorting out the right templates.

Plex Media Server on your FreeNAS is what you're looking for. If the client doesn't support a format PMS will transcode automagically for you. I'd bet this will solve your sound issues.

Any word on when it'll be available outside the US? I thought at launch they said a few weeks... (or at least 'soon').

Nice.. having Plex on Chromecast almost makes my Roku 2 useless, almost because I subscribe to MIT/PBS channels on Roku.

Chromecast is still not available outside of the US. Come on, why no love for friendly Canada? :)

I picked one up on my last visit to the US. It works just fine in Canada (no GEO IP blocking as far as I can tell).

Amazon ships the Chromecast outside the US.

Songza would be awesome, but it seems to not really actually work.

Hooray, BeyondPod support!

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