Some clarification please

[NealJ777]

I know that most of us don't have our Chromecast in hand (yet). I ordered mine yesterday (along with thousands of others!).

Here's my question: Will Chromecast allow anything that you are viewing in a tab on Chrome (on a Windows 7 PC) to be sent to a TV?

Example: If you are streaming a show from ABC's website, or watching the Super Bowl, can you send that to the TV?

Thank you

 

[mattopotamus]

I know that most of us don't have our Chromecast in hand (yet). I ordered mine yesterday (along with thousands of others!).

Here's my question: Will Chromecast allow anything that you are viewing in a tab on Chrome (on a Windows 7 PC) to be sent to a TV?

Example: If you are streaming a show from ABC's website, or watching the Super Bowl, can you send that to the TV?

Thank you

from what I understand, yes. I wonder if the companies will block that feature though. It seems like it would be a way around paying for cable tv.

 

[NealJ777]

from what I understand, yes. I wonder if the companies will block that feature though. It seems like it would be a way around paying for cable tv.

Well, I don't have cable. I cancelled it five years ago to save $$$

We currently just watch shows by going to the network's website, so this would be a good solution for getting the content to the TV.

 

[renegademoose]

from what I understand, yes. I wonder if the companies will block that feature though. It seems like it would be a way around paying for cable tv.

On their end they will just see it as a request coming from Chrome since it is running Chrome OS.

Companies need to stop worrying about what screen you are watching it on. What difference does it make if I'm looking at it on a browser on my PC (which could have a large monitor on it anyway) or on my TV? I'm still seeing the same ads or however they are generating revenue from it.

 

[CellGuy]

This was my #1 question also. This is a must have feature for me...does sound like it can happen though

 

[reddragon72]

People are going to find this is VERY limited. Miracast is very fragile. If your network is not optimized then you will see tons of lag and frame skipping. If you don't have a full WIFI N(300+) then it's not going to be pretty. And to prove it there are already people complaining in the forums but don't let the beta crap fool you as this is not a miracast issue but a network issue. First you are pulling in a 1080P stream from a site and dragging that accross WIFI then you are processing it and throwing back across the same WIFI channel. Not good.

Tell you the truth I just don't see the point in this device when you can get Android on a stick for just a little over half the price and stream whatever you want directly from the sites or better use the stations native Android app. And even better using DLNA you can throw you video's, music and pics at the Android TV stick. I have the rockchip CPU based stick which comes with Miracast and it works from my phone and laptop but it is laggy and it's all because of the network.

Trust me when I say you will not be happy with the lag Miracast produces on a crowded WIFI network.

This little device is, IMHO, pointless since you can have a full blown Android setup today on your TV!

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

This has nothing to do with miracast.
This streams nothing from your device.
This is a cloud player controlled from an Android or iOS device, or the Chrome browser with a very simple interface.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[WhoMe]

In reply to RedDragon,

Jerry pretty much defined what this is, and clearly its not what your describing and thats ok.

Yes we all know they are other solutions to similar problems out there already, but I think what Google is hoping to achieve here is something a lot more simple and potentially much more useful to a much wider audience.

 

[reddragon72]

It does contain Miracast and does mirror the chrome browser tab to the device. This has been in several other threads.

http://forums.androidcentral.com/go...e-chrome-web-browser-tv-using-chromecast.html

 

[dcdttu]

I just set mine up and whatever I had up in Chrome (Soundcloud, Spotify Web, even a MKV of Jurassic that was stored locally on my hard drive) played on my television.

Granted, the video playback was choppy. The Chromecast extension icon on my desktop gave a warning that it was poor network performance. I'm running an Airport Extreme with 802.11n.

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

It does contain Miracast and does mirror the chrome browser tab to the device. This has been in several other threads.

http://forums.androidcentral.com/go...e-chrome-web-browser-tv-using-chromecast.html

I have several of them here, and have analyzed the traffic on my lan. The only connection made is to Google. I'm also watching Saturday Night Live on Hulu, streamed from a chrome tab on a MacBook Air -- which has no Miracast hardware in it.

The Chrome extension sends data to a Google App Engine server. That server communicates with both your browser tab, and the Chromecast. The information it gets from your browser tab is used to send data to the Chromecast dongle.

There is no connection between any device and the Chromecast, even during setup.

 

[cammykool]

photo of it mirroring a chrome tab from my laptop

 

[tnt118]

I have several of them here, and have analyzed the traffic on my lan. The only connection made is to Google. I'm also watching Saturday Night Live on Hulu, streamed from a chrome tab on a MacBook Air -- which has no Miracast hardware in it.

The Chrome extension sends data to a Google App Engine server. That server communicates with both your browser tab, and the Chromecast. The information it gets from your browser tab is used to send data to the Chromecast dongle.

There is no connection between any device and the Chromecast, even during setup.

And I don't doubt you one bit, but it makes me wonder why the need to have them both on the same network. Strictly speaking that's completely unnecessary, unless building in account management and authentication either 1) wasn't possible or 2) raised the cost.

 

[trwrt]

Does the tab mirroring use a lot of CPU? I'm wondering if I'll be able to do it from my Thinkpad X301 and its puny 1.4 GHz dual-core CULV SU9400 when mine gets here.

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

And I don't doubt you one bit, but it makes me wonder why the need to have them both on the same network. Strictly speaking that's completely unnecessary, unless building in account management and authentication either 1) wasn't possible or 2) raised the cost.

There very well could be some data passing from chrome to chrome that I didn't see. The data flow is weird. I think we'll figure it out soon enough, but Im sure there is no miracast or DLNA involved, because I know what that traffic looks like

There also appears to be some sort of buffer on the computer that is casting. Could Google App engine be creating some sort of container that is filled with data on the local network?

There's a LOT of traffic up and down to Google, enough for a compressed stream.

A real Network engineer needs to have a look, instead of a programmer who passed the certs 10 years ago lol.

 

[Unicorn Rancher]

from what I understand, yes. I wonder if the companies will block that feature though. It seems like it would be a way around paying for cable tv.

You mean like connecting the TV to the laptop's video out with a cable?

 

[pjsnyc]

As I've posted in one of the stickies, I was able to mirror a tab playing HBO go with minimal pixelation and no audio lag from what I can see. My upload speeds are horrible, so I doubt the stream is making a round trip through Google. Perhaps all google does with regards to chrome tab casting is execute the handshake and the media gets directly piped through your intranet.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

[russell5]

At a quick glance here is what I think.

When I cast a youtube video I see the traffic coming from youtube like I would expect.

When I cast a tab form my desktop (just a plain google search tab) there is a LOT of UDP traffic between my computer and the chromecast.

So i believe it mirrors the tab form the desktop and NOT from the cloud. BUT I could be wrong and this was just a quick inspection of packets.