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using chromecast for network films

F

femgoth

Newbie
OK guys, can someone give me the ok before i go ahead and buy a chromecast unit this weekend. here's what i am trying to do.

we have a TV, not a smart one just a bog standard one that you can get from tesco. it does have HDMI in. We have multiple PCs, laptops, tablets and phones in the house. PCs are all windows (XP still) and tablets/phones are all android.

we each have our own media on our phones/tablets, and there is also films/tv series/music etc on the main pc.

the main PC is hardwired to the router, the PC upstairs is on powerline, everything else is wireless using virgins superhub 2.0.

what we want to be able to do is play any media from our own units or from the central computer (using our other units as a remote) on the main tv. in other words, using my phone (xperia z) i want to be able to play movies/music/tvseries from my phone on the tv; i also want to be able to play movies/tv that are on the main pc, and skip through etc without leaving the sofa.

will chromecast let me do this? from what i have read i am confused as to whether you can only push movies using google play movies. if that is the case can GP.movies play stuff from a network source? i dont want to have to copy movies over to the phone to be able to play them..

i am happy with my phone acting as the go between so movies being played from the PC on my phone and being pushed over to the TV.

we originally tried all this with a rikomagik dongle for the tv but it turned out that it was rubbish; not only getting a poor signal half the time, but the other half of the time acting as a wifi jammer.
 
You can download Plex and watch your content with chromecast.
Plex - A Complete Media Solution
I bought a chromecast.
Hooked it up, played with it for an hour, unhooked it and returned it to Amazon.
I just didn't like the limitations for watching web content so I bought a ROKU.
 
What do you mean by limitations? I dint particularly want to watch web content, all we really want is to watch files from the computer or android devices.
 
Chromecast only had 4 channels to watch.
I want to watch several different things like netflix,youtube hulu, and others.
Look at the plex site it might be just what you're looking for.
I would spend the extra $14 and get a Roku over the chromecast.
I guess that's what I did.:D
 
I'm all about the low price at the moment. Luckily I have no intention of using it for the extra channels as our virgin account gives its all that; we just want to be able to stream stuff from the pc.

Thx for the advice though.
 
femgoth said:
I'm all about the low price at the moment. Luckily I have no intention of using it for the extra channels as our virgin account gives its all that; we just want to be able to stream stuff from the pc.

Thx for the advice though.
Click to expand...
at the moment chromecast only lets you stream things from the pc via the chrome browser, and you also need a relatively new pc to do it successfully(windows xp is NOT supported)) https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/3209990?hl=en&ref_topic=3210038

Chromecast FAQs:
https://support.google.com/chromecast/?hl=en&p=mktg_help#topic=3210038

(netflix, hulu, HBOgo, pandora, play movies, and play music are the only other things that can be played, they are not streamed "through" any other device, the chromecast device itself connects to the service and plays it as a stand alone device...mobile devices are merely a remote control)
 
So you can stream from apps in Windows but not from android, how utterly pants. Got to wonder what Google are playing at supporting apps on rival platforms but not their own.

Who would have thought that streaming media from a phone to at would be so hard. Google play app on android even has a button to stream to an external device so it's insane that Google haven't used that in chromecast.
 
femgoth said:
So you can stream from apps in Windows but not from android, how utterly pants. Got to wonder what Google are playing at supporting apps on rival platforms but not their own.

Who would have thought that streaming media from a phone to at would be so hard. Google play app on android even has a button to stream to an external device so it's insane that Google haven't used that in chromecast.
Click to expand...
as a chromecast owner, i agree, not being able to stream local content is a draw back right now, but the feature is definitely in the works (chromecast has the technical ability to but google has it shut off right now)..
however i do love the device even without the ability..
 
i have both chromecast and roku.

roku is superior by far. it can stream pc content far better and easily. and the lower priced roku's are darn cheap these days.

my chromecast is sitting in a drawer. not worth the 35 bucks imo.
 
Moved to the Chromecast forum where a lot of this has been covered.

See the sticky thread here for configuration requirements.

The problem with "any media" to Chromecast is the same one that DLNA TVs produce - not all codecs are supported.

Chromecast is not a multi-app, multi-player device like a Roku or similar product.

It essentially runs one primary app - a specialized browser - and the services to support that.

A lot of people have gotten the expectation that it's supposed to be a Miracast type device or a multi-app Android device. It's not.

It's the cheapest, reliable TV device out there - and it has limitations - but what it does, it does really well.

Over 50% of all broadband traffic in North America right now is a combination of Netflix and YouTube use.

Chromecast is the product that introduced the protocol that Netflix and YouTube collaborated on together - DIAL - discovery and launch.

The SDK is completing soon and more apps will be coming.

But they'll run on the supporting devices, the Chromecast will simply discover and launch the media being served.
 
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