Google Launches The Chromecast To Bring Chrome To The Living Room

http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/24/google-chromecast/

by harryzhang • 13 years ago

177 163 13 years ago

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

jfoutz• 13 years ago

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

rogerchucker9• 13 years ago

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

cheald• 13 years ago

I saw the price and immediately ordered one. For $35 (which is really ~$11 since I'm already a Netflix subscriber), I'm okay if it sucks.

bane3• 13 years ago

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.

ja273• 13 years ago

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.

mikeevans2• 13 years ago

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

dhyasama• 13 years ago

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!

apendleton2• 13 years ago

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.

bane3• 13 years ago

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

apendleton2• 13 years ago

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.

tcoppi3• 13 years ago

I agree, being one of the maybe 12 people in the world that actually uses a Google TV and likes it, I hoped they would have at least mentioned something about it, even that they were killing it. That being said, I still bought a chromecast because it looks friggin sweet.

IanChiles2• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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

Phargo• 13 years ago

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.

harmonic• 13 years ago

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.

kailuowang• 13 years ago

Other interesting differences include price and ease to setup.

rogerchucker9• 13 years ago

I hope the protocol used is less buggy than AirPlay. AirPlay is very shaky with many apps. I am not sure though if it's the protocol's problem or the app's.

scholia4• 13 years ago

Closed proprietary non-standard solution....

CrazedGeek• 13 years ago

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?

Fuzzwah• 13 years ago

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/

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

Shorel• 13 years ago

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

saturdaysaint4• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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.

tsycho6• 13 years ago

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.

psbp2• 13 years ago

Just bought one. It's surprising that Google came up with such a compelling solution after the failure of the Nexus Q.

mikeevans2• 13 years ago

Seems exactly like the evolution of the Nexus Q. It interfaces the exact same way with the Youtube/Play Movies apps, minus the need for a special app to set it up.

pgrote• 13 years ago

Are you constrained to streaming only approved sites? For instance, if I go to watch espn can I stream that onto the TV?

psbp2• 13 years ago

You can tab stream and there's apparently an sdk so there's pretty much no barriers to streaming!!

DominikR2• 13 years ago

How does it accomplish to turn on the TV and switch to the correct input when a cast is started? (and control the TVs volume)

robbiet4802• 13 years ago

HDMI has a feature called CEC which can control inputs, volume, channels, basically everything a normal remote can, but over the existing cable and connection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#CEC

oneplusone• 13 years ago

No reason it wouldn't work on a projector right? I was going to use a Raspberry Pi to do the same thing, but this is much simpler. Do you know when is it coming to Canada? I'd prefer not to go through the hassle of getting a reshipper to mail it to me.

k-mcgrady6• 13 years ago

They said other markets would be coming as soon as they can. Not sure what that means but for the Nexus 7 launch Canada is only a few weeks behind the US. With the Chromecast they probably have now idea how demand will be and once they know they can fulfil it will open up to Canada and others.

saturdaysaint4• 13 years ago

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.

tsycho6• 13 years ago

I don't know, maybe because it needs a browser extension which older ones don't support at the moment. I would assume they'll support them later, but honestly, I don't know.

pthatcherg2• 13 years ago

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.

tonfa4• 13 years ago

I think it's only for the "chromecast your webpage" feature (which pushes the page from the chrome browser).

mtgx2• 13 years ago

Because of the hardware DRM framework would be my guess.

Yeah, welcome to the "cross-platform" HTML5 DRM.

alagu• 13 years ago

I wish it had full fledged chrome browser like Google TV (instead of remoting via chrome in laptop).

That would be a killer.

k-mcgrady6• 13 years ago

It wouldn't be killer. A very small subset of users would want it. Any time I've seen browsers on TV's trying to read the text from a couch has been difficult, interfacing with it's difficult, and like most people I'm sure I don't like browsing in full view of everyone. e.g. type in a password and everyone can see it. If this had a full browser I seriously doubt that could release it this cheap and I think anything over $50 and it wouldn't sell.

j_s2• 13 years ago

If it streams arbitrary video, it beats AirPlay from my iPad.

rogerchucker9• 13 years ago

Can you kindly clarify how it is being powered? Frankly that's what's stopping me from clicking the "Proceed to Checkout" button.

tsycho6• 13 years ago

It uses a mini/micro? USB (one of those small USB ports for power). My device came with an adapter that I could attach to my TV's USB port, so there are no dangling wires. If your TV doesn't have a USB port, you can just connect it to a normal power outlet (it's the same adapter as for many other Android devices)

yellowbkpk2• 13 years ago

The HDMI connection provides 5V power.

hullo2• 13 years ago

That sounds smart to me, but for Netflix at least, generally everyone would use the Netflix app on the Apple TV (which is solid) rather than airplay from their device. YouTube is another story, though, it's a disaster on the Apple TV and I'll almost always stream from my phone. Of course, if I'm streaming to my Apple TV I'm by definition at home with a charger nearby, so this isn't a key differentiator.

But that brings up what I think is the most interesting use case – portability: put it in your bag and forget it until you need to present/watch something for work/at a friends house.

scholia4• 13 years ago

AFAICS, it doesn't stream from the device, it streams from the web, so charger is not a problem....

jonknee• 13 years ago

generally everyone would use the Netflix app on the Apple TV (which is solid) rather than airplay from their device

Only people that have Apple TVs. Apple has sold a lot of them, but it's a fairly niche device that costs 3x what this one does. They also work differently so that you're not streaming from your device to the Chromecast dongle, but that you're essentially just telling it what to play (you can then use your device as normal). This is pretty neat, I for one would use it just so I would not have to deal with the terrible Apple TV remote control anymore. Typing in anything is a frustrating experience, I'd rather type from my phone or computer and then have it play where I'd like (my TV).

ja273• 13 years ago

How do you configure the wifi settings? Connect it to a laptop/desktop with USB first? It's own adhoc network for configuration?

That's one thing that will hold it back for non-techies.

tsycho6• 13 years ago

It's pretty easy. See the photo gallery here for an overview of the setup http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/24/4553368/hands-on-googles-3...

tcoppi3• 13 years ago

Do you know if there is support for the Linux version of Google Chrome?

mtgx2• 13 years ago

Unless Linux machines or distros support the same kind of HTML5 DRM, then no.

tsycho6• 13 years ago

Haven't tried it, but with the Chromecast extension, it presumably should. The only potential problem I see is if there are any licensing issues with video codecs.

wasd• 13 years ago

How did you become a "dog fooder" for this?

tonfa4• 13 years ago

Get hired by Google?

pmelendez4• 13 years ago

"* Cross-platform support, not just iDevices"

Well that only adds androids devices to the list, Windows phones are out right now.

"* 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"

AppleTv does this by it owns, not need to stream Netflix from your devices.

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

Only if they are iDevices or android devices.

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

Only attractive I see, still if you already own an AppleTV, why should I buy this one too?

dragonwriter• 13 years ago

> "* All your phones/tablets/computers become your remote/controllers."
Only if they are iDevices or android devices.

OR Windows, MacOS, or Chromebook Pixel desktop/laptops.

tsycho6• 13 years ago

Chrome browser supports it. There's an SDK, so theoretically any device can support it.

I own both an AppleTV and a ChromeCast. For Netflix, I use both depending on whether my phone or the Apple TV remote was closer to me. For Youtube, no question, Chromecast is far better. Other content, I don't want to comment about since I am not sure what's released to the public yet.

I also strongly dislike that AppleTV has a fixed set of channels/apps and no SDK (though it's likely they will have one soon). I can't even remove the multiple channels that I never watch and don't care about.

pmelendez4• 13 years ago

Funny thing when people down-vote posts that criticize(?) Google and don't give a good reason why...

Exactly which part of what I said deserves to be downvoted? I don't care about the karma but it makes me wonder what are the things that are not acceptable in HN

brown9-2• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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

Disclaimer: I just bought one.

knocknock• 13 years ago

No love for Miracast

davefp• 13 years ago

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.

nilsbunger• 13 years ago

"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/

rawatson• 13 years ago

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.

bane3• 13 years ago

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

CurtHagenlocher• 13 years ago

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

guelo3• 13 years ago

How does it power itself? Does HDMI provide power?

boomzilla• 13 years ago

ja273• 13 years ago

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

guelo3• 13 years ago

Ah, now I see. The marketing pics make it look a lot cleaner than it really is. There will be a cable coming out of the thing, probably going into your power strip.

alooPotato• 13 years ago

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.

dkulchenko• 13 years ago

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

SEMW• 13 years ago

Officially, the chromecast API only (so far) supports sender applications built on ios, android, and chrome (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.

est2• 13 years ago

Does VLC support full DLNA stack yet?

rogerchucker9• 13 years ago

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

ryanklee• 13 years ago

It's down 0.13%. Look at any other day at random to see that that's hardly a meaningful fluctuation.

Further, trying to attribute stock price movements to actual real world events is usually an extremely dubious affair.

k-mcgrady6• 13 years ago

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.

rogerchucker9• 13 years ago

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.

tnuc• 13 years ago

Wall street doesn't really care about new products.

Wall street likes nice figures. All the figures released during the presentation weren't exactly new.

rogerchucker9• 13 years ago

I was thinking maybe as an investor I'd see this move as an example of "potentially" good execution and a possibility of Google playing well with media giants.

randallu• 13 years ago

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.

throwaway1979• 13 years ago

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

ddedden• 13 years ago

They just added it in the last hour or so.

dangrossman2• 13 years ago

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.

lftl2• 13 years ago

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"

dangrossman2• 13 years ago

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.

jrockway• 13 years ago

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!

jebblue3• 13 years ago

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

rogerbinns2• 13 years ago

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

porker• 13 years ago

Can it playback DIVX/XVID?

est2• 13 years ago

And how about subtitles?

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

pmelendez4• 13 years ago

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"

WayneDB• 13 years ago

At my house we have a full Windows 7 PC or laptop attached to every TV and a wireless combo keyboard/trackpad. It's been that way for over 5 years and there's nothing we can't do with them.

We didn't spend much to do this either - these are all old or leftover computers except for the one in my wife's room because she wanted a quad-digital-tuner Windows media center (so I built her a tiny shuttle box with a Ceton tuner).

jebblue3• 13 years ago

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

qq66• 13 years ago

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.

Kerrick• 13 years ago

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/

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

sbuccini• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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

ok_craig• 13 years ago

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

jebblue3• 13 years ago

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.

twentyfourseven• 13 years ago

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 ;-)

Google Launches The Chromecast To Bring Chrome To The Living Room

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