More info abt Chromecast

[ScottXe]

Is Chromecast just an internet media player? Any other usage?

Learnt that the WiFi reception is a key factor to make it workable. How's the sensitivity of WiFi receiver on this unit? How far is the distance between AP and the TV?

Is it very hot during normal use?

 

[Groundhound]

Is Chromecast just an internet media player? Any other usage?

Learnt that the WiFi reception is a key factor to make it workable. How's the sensitivity of WiFi receiver on this unit? How far is the distance between AP and the TV?

Is it very hot during normal use?

1. Primarily an Internet media player for your TV, but also can display your computer desktop on your TV(experimental, not active yet on all OS's). Also, developers will add local media streaming in the near future.

2. WiFi (2.4 GHz) reception is important, especially if you are streaming HD Internet video. One way to check in advance is to use an app like Speedtest on your phone to see what kind of Internet speeds over WiFi you get at the spot where your Chromecast will be placed.

3. It does run hot, and according to the instructions this is normal.

 

[ScottXe]

Thanks for your useful info. I am interested in your answer 1. Did you mean mirroring the computer desktop? Is it possible to conduct the powerpoint presentation from my Windows 8 tablet to the TV? If yes, now or possibly future.

 

[Farish]

Did you mean mirroring the computer desktop? Is it possible to conduct the powerpoint presentation from my Windows 8 tablet to the TV? If yes, now or possibly future.

The only thing that can currently mirrored is a chrome browser tab. If you have a way to broadcast from a chrome browser tab power point, that could work. But that also depends what is your tablet running. Are you running an ARM processor tablet with Windows RT, if yes, chrome is not available on it.

Are you running a full version of windows 8 on an intel atom processor tablet, if yes then you can run the chromecast extension and google chrome on it. There are tricks to play local files on Google Chrome but I have no clue if that includes powerpoint.

 

[Groundhound]

Thanks for your useful info. I am interested in your answer 1. Did you mean mirroring the computer desktop? Is it possible to conduct the powerpoint presentation from my Windows 8 tablet to the TV? If yes, now or possibly future.

Right now you can mirror your computer desktop in Windows (I don't think it works for Macs yet). It is done via chrome but can be set to cast your desktop while chrome is minimized, so you can use it to display a PowerPoint presentation. In practice there is a noticeable delay between the two displays. As I mentioned above, this feature is listed as experimental for now, so hopefully improvements will be made.

The only thing that can currently mirrored is a chrome browser tab.

Here is where you select to cast the current tab or the entire screen:

 

[Groundhound]

A little more info on the delay when casting your entire screen. In my experience so far it appears that the delay occurs when a command such as page down via mouse or keyboard is first issued (I was using Adobe Reader at the time with Chrome minimized). The delay on the TV for the page down to show was more than a second. If there were scrolling or multiple page down commands, once the sequence started then it proceeded rapidly; so it appears as if there is some sort of caching going on.