
Google Launches The Chromecast To Bring Chrome To The Living Room - harryzhang
http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/24/google-chromecast/
======
tsycho
The obvious question: Why would you buy this if you already had an Apple TV
(or were considering buying one)?

* Cross-platform support, not just iDevices

* For apps that integrate with the SDK (currently Youtube & Netflix, but I am sure more will be coming soon), the processing of the content can be transferred to the the Chromecast. Hence, once you "flick" your Netflix content to Chromecast, your phone is free and not processing content anymore unlike Airplay, which is a huge win for your phone's battery.

* All your phones/tablets/computers become your remote/controllers.

* The price (at $35, it's a relatively low-risk impulse buy)

* UPDATE: It automatically switches to the HDMI input channel when streamed, atleast on my LG TV. My 3rd gen Apple TV doesn't so I have to find the TV remote to switch HDMI inputs, which can sometimes be annoying.

~~~
saturdaysaint
_For apps that integrate with the SDK (currently Youtube & Netflix, but I am
sure more will be coming soon), the processing of the content can be
transferred to the the Chromekey. Hence, once you "flick" your Netflix content
to Chromekey, your phone is free and not processing content anymore unlike
Airplay, which is a huge win for your phone's battery._

If that's the case, I wonder why Chromebooks (other than the Pixel) aren't
compatible.

~~~
pthatcherg
It's probably because of CPU power. Encoding high resolution video take a lot
of CPU power, and the Pixel has more CPU power than other Chromebooks.

~~~
bound008
That is the point of the question. If it requires CPU usage, how does it save
battery.

~~~
cocoflunchy
It only requires CPU usage when it's streaming the contents of your screen.
For Youtube/Netflix, all it does is tell the key the url of the stream and
everything is done either on the key or the server.

~~~
Recoil42
I don't believe that's correct -- from what I can tell, when it's streaming
webpages, it is actually only synchronizing two copies of Chrome -- one on the
stick, one on your PC. It is not encoding/transmitting a video, as with
AirPlay or Miracast.

~~~
corresation
From what do you discern that? Given that everything they showed about the the
product was variations of it receiving and decoding a video stream, it would
be quite a switch for it to also have a full platform running a web browser in
synchronicity. It seems much more likely that it is a direct video send,
making it enormously simpler to design.

~~~
Saavedro
> The receiver device runs a scaled-down Chrome browser with a receiver
> application that receives data over Internet Protocol and transmits it to
> the television via HDMI.

[https://developers.google.com/cast/](https://developers.google.com/cast/)

~~~
corresation
Very cool, though incredibly surprising (a browser is an intensive, complex
thing, so will people have to constantly be patching their Chromestick?),
especially given that once you add the cost of synchronizing all interactions,
it seems so much easier to simply video grab the tab.

If anyone has this device, what is CPU usage on the source like when tab-
casting?

------
Kerrick
> Note: You may not publicly distribute or ship your Google Cast application
> without written permission from Google, per the terms of service described
> below.

[https://developers.google.com/cast/downloads/](https://developers.google.com/cast/downloads/)

> YOU MAY NOT PUBLICLY DISTRIBUTE CODE CONTAINING THIS SDK OR REFERENCING
> THESE APIs WITHOUT A WRITTEN AGREEMENT WITH GOOGLE ALLOWING YOU TO DO SO.

> By accessing the download links below, you indicate that you have read and
> accept Google's API Terms and further agree not to publicly distribute code
> containing the SDK and APIs accessed through the links below unless and
> until you enter a written agreement with Google providing such permission.

> If you wish to discuss shipping your apps, please write us at chromecast-
> updates@google.com

------
Fuzzwah
Awesome. This will nicely round out my HTPC setup. I have an R-Pi running XBMC
along with an MK802ii on which I've built a system which lets me trigger music
playback from XBMC using RFID cards.

[http://fuzzysprojects.wordpress.com/rfid-triggered-
music/](http://fuzzysprojects.wordpress.com/rfid-triggered-music/)

I had been working on a way to get youtube vids to playback in XBMC by firing
a json call at it, but with out spending time hacking together my own chrome
extension I was never going to be able to make it easy enough for my wife to
do.

I had already made the purchase before I headed here to the comments and
noticed that it also came with 3 months of netflix. Nice bonus.

PS: the learn more link isn't working atm:
[http://www.google.com/chromecast](http://www.google.com/chromecast)

------
bane
Absolutely blown away by this. This might just lead us one step closer to the
grand unification of devices in the living room that has long been dreamed of.

I'm more excited about this than the xbox one announcement that's for sure.

The price is unbelievable ($35)...an impulse buy.

 _edit_ (come to think of it I'd bet we'll start seeing "chromecast ready TVs"
by Christmas.

~~~
ja27
I know. I had already typed a tweet about what a killer device it would be at
$99 when they said $35. I went from thinking I would probably get one to now
I'll get one for each screen.

------
brown9-2
It seems like existing Netflix customers have a strong incentive to "buy" the
Chromecast since it is essentially free as long as your Netflix plan is
$12/month or more:

 _Once your Chromecast ships, you will recieve an email with a promotional
code for 3 months of Netflix. Offer valid for previous, new and existing
Netflix members, one per Netflix account._

~~~
zellyn
From reading the fine print, it appears that it's only the $7.99-per-month
plan that's covered, but you can apply that discount against a more expensive
plan.

[Edit: note that that still leaves it very cheap.]

~~~
toomuchtodo
Yes. If you already have Netflix, it's essentially a $12 device. Stupid easy
decision to make.

Disclaimer: I just bought one.

~~~
vubuntu
> $12 device Not exactly. With shipping plus taxes , total came to ~ $41. So
> 41 - 3 x 7.99 = $17 device

~~~
dag11
I don't know, I just bought it on Amazon with free shipping and spent a total
of $35, so it's effectively $11 for me factoring in the Netflix savings.

------
davefp
I love this. Last year I was super-excited about the Nexus Q (I have my I/O
freebie in a box somewhere) but was disappointed by a) the price and b) the
lack of an SDK.

A year later, we get ChromeCast. It's a tenth of the size, a tenth of the
price, and supports every device in my home. I'm glad Google decided not to
run with the Q and had the balls to pull it out of production while they (I
assume) worked on ChromeCast.

------
apendleton
It's not clear to me what this means for Google TV, which, it seems, has long
been a bastard stepchild in the Google consumer product family. If I both
wanted to play games and take advantage of Chromecast apps on my other
devices, I guess I would need both? Or maybe there will be a Chromecast
receiver app for Google TV?

More broadly, this seems symptomatic of the continued tension between the
Chrome and Android platforms within Google, since this is yet another space
where they're stepping on each other's toes without obvious rhyme or reason
from a consumer perspective.

~~~
bane
I wasn't even aware Google TV was still a "thing". I had assumed the product
line was long dead.

~~~
apendleton
Third-party manufacturers are still making devices (both set-top boxes and
TVs) on top of it, and new features were announced for it at this past Google
IO. But it's barely alive, I think.

------
IanChiles
I just ordered one. Impulse buy on my part - but with a SDK + support for
multiple devices, I have high hopes for it. Looks really awesome, and it'll
probably land up being pretty hackable. :D

~~~
kylebrown
Same here. I hope it won't be long until VLC supports this thing.

~~~
Phargo
I hope they can find a way to stream XBMC to it. This solves SO many of my
home theater problems if they figure that out.

~~~
IanChiles
Better yet, just port XMBC to it.

------
mikeevans
Looks like you can order it now (with 3 months free on Netflix):
[https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=chromecast](https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=chromecast)

~~~
dhyasama
Just tried to buy one and got an out of inventory message :(

UPDATE: Tried again and you can no longer add it to the shopping cart. Just
says coming soon.

UPDATE 2: I'm a glutton for punishment so I tried again and it worked!

------
pmelendez
I guess I am the only who is not particularly excited about this. Other than
the price it is a "me too" response to AppleTV.

One of the most annoying thing about these devices is that because the lack of
storage, they need to be streaming all the time (which is a problem with
connections with a cap like in Canada) which is very inconvenient if you want
to buy movies on iTunes/Google Play.

AppleTV enables game devs to use the TV as a separate common screen for multi
users games but that feature seems to be missing with the Chromecast (or at
least I couldn't find any reference to it)

So as an AppleTV owner I just can't help but to think this as a "meh"

~~~
jebblue
Going by the hits on Amazon I'm seeing I think Roku beats AppleTV easily.

------
harmonic
As a longtime AirPlay user, I find this less exciting since AirPlay works with
pretty much anything that's on your iDevice. That said, cross platform is
interesting.

~~~
scholia
Closed proprietary non-standard solution....

~~~
CrazedGeek
And Google Cast, with its lovely "You may not publicly distribute or ship your
Google Cast application without written permission from Google" warning,
isn't?

------
nilsbunger
"Powered by usb" is confusing. Does it have to be plugged into a computer to
work? Or just a USB power source like a charger?

EDIT: Engadget article has more info, looks like just USB power. Exciting!
[http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/24/google-
chromekey/](http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/24/google-chromekey/)

------
rawatson
Just ordered mine.

I continue to be impressed by the uses Google has found for Chrome. Building
new features into Chrome gives Google the capabilities of a full desktop
application without the need to convince users to install new software. Google
can just issue an update to Chrome to instantly ship new projects to ~20% of
web users.

~~~
bane
What's really interesting is that they seem to be accomplishing it without
breaking the web a la Microsoft style.

------
dangrossman
I'm extremely surprised that Google actually added this to Google TV. I
figured, at this point, that my 3-year-old Revue box was long-forgotten by
Google.

The "play on Google TV" button showed up on both my desktop (in Chrome) and
phone (in the YouTube app) some weeks or months ago, I'm not sure. It works
just like this Chromecast thing was described -- whatever I was watching on
the other device shows up on the TV and playback can be controlled from either
side.

~~~
lftl
So you can use the tab casting feature in Chrome to cast to your Revue? I
dusted my Revue off, forced it to update, and now I can control it from the
Youtube app on my Android phone, but in Chrome it says "No cast devices found"

~~~
dangrossman
No, there's no tab casting. Just YouTube sharing. I think it's the Chromemote
app that added the button to YouTube. In Android, the native YouTube app can
cast to Google TV and remotely control the playback on the TV.

~~~
lftl
Ahh, too bad. Tab casting is really the killer feature to me. I thought I had
finally found a reason to use the old Revue again :)

------
dkulchenko
Hmm... can I only stream from Chrome? What about my local movie collection?

~~~
SEMW
Officially, the chromecast API only (so far) supports sender applications
built on ios, android, and chrome
([https://developers.google.com/cast/](https://developers.google.com/cast/)).

Unofficially, I'd be surprised if vlc hasn't found a way to be a chromecast
sender within 6 months.

~~~
est
Does VLC support full DLNA stack yet?

------
jrockway
I'm pretty excited about this. At Google, we use Hangouts to share our
laptop's screen with TVs in the conference rooms (for meetings, presentations,
that sort of thing), and I've always wanted a way to do this easily at home.
I'm much too lazy to plug my laptop into the TV, after all :)

Sounds like we finally have the answer!

~~~
jebblue
Put a real operating system in it and I might consider dumping my excellent
Roku.

~~~
rogerbinns
I have one of those Rokus. Notice the lack of a Youtube channel :-)

------
saturdaysaint
Too bad it doesn't work with Chromebooks (other than the pixel). I understand
that we're lucky that the ARM-based models can even handle hi-res video at
all, but I'd think the Intel-based Acer could handle this too.

~~~
evandena
I don't think the "remote" device is doing any of the work. Once the
Chromecast stick gets the feed, it will be doing all the streaming, or a
combination of serverside work.

I think the older Chromebooks might not have the Chrome extensions yet. I
can't imagine them not being supported sometime soon.

------
qq66
This is only useful to me if it also is supported by a major Windows media
player like VLC. What I like about AirPlay is that I can flick something from
my phone to the TV, but also from iTunes (blech) to the TV. I would love to
have a solution that did not involve iTunes. I love that the price is 1/3 of
the Apple TV.

------
ok_craig
The biggest news here is that the dongle is running a version of Chrome, not
Android.

~~~
jebblue
My Roku runs a real operating system so IMO Google loses out again by trying
to push the all Google browser all the time and oh they own all our data.

------
alooPotato
Can I push a chrome tab to this thing and then shut off my laptop and have the
tab still displayed on the chrome key? I'm thinking of using this for all of
the dashboards in our office, at $35 each, that would be awesome.

------
randallu
I wonder what the SoC is on this, and if it runs Android. I assume it has some
UI for connecting to WiFi, so conceivably it could be like those cheap Android
HDMI dongles inside.

------
CurtHagenlocher
Can I use this without creating or logging into a Google account?

------
Shorel
The easiest way to connect my PC to a HDTV is my HDMI cable.

------
sbuccini
The fine print says "power cord not shown." I'm assuming for this is the
device itself? Shouldn't it be able to power through USB?

------
mycodebreaks
Will it work if I inserted Chromecast into HDMI port of my monitor rather than
a TV?

------
throwaway1979
I don't see this thing on Amazon.com (US store). Am I missing something?

~~~
ddedden
They just added it in the last hour or so.

------
twentyfourseven
NSA, US government, tyrants everywhere, watch Google carefully for how it's
done. For a fickle crowd like Hacker News, you can seize their liberty and
human rights _easily_ \- just distract them with shiny new things.

For shiny new toys, some people will rationalize anything ;-)

------
knocknock
No love for Miracast

------
guelo
How does it power itself? Does HDMI provide power?

~~~
boomzilla
powered by USB connection

~~~
ja27
Funny that the photos don't show that. A lot of TVs have USB ports that could
maybe power this.

~~~
TheMakeA
It's an interesting design problem for sure. Do they make it a USB dongle and
have an HDMI cable going out? Or an HDMI dongle with a USB cable going out?

~~~
guelo
Function-wise two cables would be the better design. On my TV this dongle
would probably interfere with cables in the ports next to it. In this picture
you can imagine the problem if there was another HDMI port right above the one
it's plugged into,
[https://lh6.ggpht.com/jbhD_qpdQkLDEk4Y6PV9E2vBWM7__xjVzE18_J...](https://lh6.ggpht.com/jbhD_qpdQkLDEk4Y6PV9E2vBWM7__xjVzE18_Jb6DHRIWaad_F3oK5z1B-VKxazaarQ9=h900)

------
porker
Can it playback DIVX/XVID?

~~~
est
And how about subtitles?

DLNA doesn't support subtitles unless it's inlined in mp4 container.

------
rogerchucker
I'm oddly very very excited about this especially considering the price point
($35), the size and the cross-platform support.

~~~
jfoutz
I wasn't, but for $35, it's easy to give it a try.

~~~
rogerchucker
What makes it inferior to Apple TV? I own an Apple TV and beyond Netflix and
Youtube I really have no use for it.

~~~
rickyc091
I was sold on the price point for one. Secondly, the nice thing about this is
that you aren't stuck on the Apple platform. I can push content from my
iPhone, my windows machine or my mac directly to the television. If you are
just using it for netflix / youtube and you already have an Apple TV, you
definitely won't need this.

Forgot to mention that they'll open up their SDK so you can probably expect
some cool hacks in the near future.

~~~
tomkarlo
Actually, if you're a heavy YouTube user, the AppleTV interface is terrible
and out of date. It's hard to search, hard to access your playlists, etc
compared to using the web site or the apps. (I have an AppleTV and it's a
constant point of frustration for me.)

Making a remote-based, d-pad interface as convenient as a touch screen is
very, very difficult.

------
rogerchucker
Why the fuck doesn't Wall Street like this? GOOG's been going down since the
presentation started.

~~~
k-mcgrady
This happens to Apple too. It's the way the market works. It's based on
speculation. Rumours are usually much more exciting than what's actually
announced, people buy based on the rumours, and when the actual products are
announced (even when they are good) they fail to meet crazy expectations and
the market corrects - people sell.

~~~
rogerchucker
But does that Apple analogy apply here? Apple's rumors are at a crazier scale
than Google's and Chromecast in particular was barely a whisper on the street,
especially with more reports pointing to Nexus 7 in the days leading up to
this event.

~~~
k-mcgrady
True, I'm sure it still probably applies just to a lesser extent. I just
checked and it looks like after the fall it's started to rise again. Edit:
Looked again and the fall/rise is pretty much mirroring the Dow and NASDAQ
today.

~~~
rogerchucker
So basically no expectation and hence no effect.

