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Comment by kusuriya | Hacker News Reader

35 dollars for an android device that can now be turned into an XBMC device with netflix.... I think I may give the chromecast a second swing...

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Is it just me, or is it odd that we rejoice when things like this happen? It just doesn't feel right to reward companies who release locked-down hardware. Don't get me wrong, I share in the excitement for a $35 XBMC capable android device. But on the other hand, it seems a better idea to spend money on a product that isn't locked down in the first place.

I haven't followed the Chromecast, but why is it locked in the first place!?

It's locked because they are selling it at a knock down price to tempt you into their eco system. As a consumer you are free to buy any of the SOC devices out on the market at the moment, of which there is a fantastic array, but they all cost more.

what can you buy with $35 that has the capabilities of the chromecast?

I think there's probably not a device with the same set of capabilities of the chromecast at the same price, but on the other hand the chromecast is missing features that you can have on other devices that cost more or less the same (take rPi or one of the thousands of android usb stick) e.g. being able to play avi/divx files (it supports h264 in mp4 and mkv) or audio tracks in ac3 or dts (it supports mp3, vorbis and aac) without transcoding, or use some android apps like p2p streaming apps (sopcast). So the problem is that you can some things really easily (e.g. netflix or sharing from phone) but you miss some other that somebody is looking for (e.g. use it a good mediaplayer having quite an old pc and phone that can't be used for transcoding sources).

I've found some of these here[1] but owning no chromecast I can't do any test by myself.

[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/Chromecast/comments/1umk7t/lets_make...

I read some guys higher up in this thread talk about using a RaspberryPi.

For those who don't know (as I didn't) XBMC[1] is an open-source media center/entertainment application that supports a variety of OSes, including Android. And, apparently, the project is going to be renamed "Kodi" in the near future.

[1] http://xbmc.org/about/

It blows my mind that XBMC is still being developed, let alone relatively popular on several platforms. I used it pretty extensively on a modchipped Xbox ~10 years ago as my first real "streaming" box (i.e. to play pirated movies from my computer on my TV). Strange that they didn't drop the 'XB' from their moniker earlier.

They did drop it. It's now called Kodi.

Don't hold your breath on that one. XBMC is very resource demanding and the SoC on Chromecast is not only not documented but also very low on resources.

However, they might be able to grab the private keys from it and use them to build add Chromecast emulation to XBMC.

You can find them even cheaper (~$30).

Hackability is just icing on the cake.

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