Google Chromecast Review - An Awesome $35 HDMI Dongle
by Brian Klug on July 29, 2013 9:45 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Media Player
- Android
- Mobile
- HDMI
- Chrome
- Tablets
- Chromecast
Through Chrome
It’s impossible to expect every service to port their frontend to the Cast SDK, and for some services licensing issues might make that very difficult (Hulu, Amazon Prime, Vudu), or imposible, to say nothing about those who face technical restrictions (Flash). For that, there’s the other side of Chromecast, which works similar in practice to other screen mirroring standards (WiDi, Miracast, AirPlay Mirroring), and streams the content of a tab, and its audio, directly to the receiver. The plugin adds a Cast icon to Chrome, and there’s a tiny down arrow at the far right for selecting between current tab, audio mode, and if you’re lucky full screen (I don’t know why some see the full screen option and others don’t, neither my Retina MacBook Pro nor Windows 7 desktops see this option, but I’ve seen others show it).
There are three different options in settings for video quality, and since the video is encoded in software on the host, choosing between them will affect CPU use dramatically. I’ve backed out bitrates for the three settings: 5.0 Mbps for extreme (720p high bitrate), 3.0 Mbps for High (720p), 1.7 Mbps for Standard (480p), all seem to be VP8, especially given the fact that this is essentially WebRTC in practice.
There’s latency of about a second on the connection, and of course the occasional artifact during motion and a dropped frame or two (depending on connection quality), but it works surprisingly well.
HDMI Capture of Chrome Casted Tab
For a lot of services that don’t have Cast support this is the only way to get video across, it’s essentially AirPlay Mirroring but of a tab (or full screen if the setting is visible under that drop down). I’d love to see this functionality added to Chrome for Android or iOS if that’s possible as well, though those platforms really need VP8 hardware encode to make it tenable.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
105 Comments
View All Comments
dvinnen - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
Looking at it, the WiFi chip supports bluetooth 3.0. If google enabled controlling it via bluetooth it would be awesome for travel. Not sure that is possible though with he bluetooth specBrazos - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
I assume this would work if plugged into a HDMI port on my AVI receiver (so I can enjoy sound thru my stereo)? Only problem might be the wireless connection due to it's location in the rear of the receiver. HDMI extension cable?Brian Klug - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
That's exactly what I did, even on the floor/close to it (bottom shelf of the media cabinet) it works fine.-Brian
savagemike - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
Would love an article on the miracast week you've had. Been thinking about trying that out and would love to hear more about the pitfalls.Given the new golden-child Nexus 7 (2013) apparently supports it that would be a great context for an article.
joeballow - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
I do plan on getting one, but I wish they made a wired version with ethernet instead of wifi. I live in a crowded apartment building and prefer to hard wire anything that isn't mobile. It seems they could hit the same price point by dropping wifi and adding ethernet unless wifi is already integrated into the chip? If that's the case I'd pay $10 more for a wired/wireless version.LeftSide - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
Just got mine in the mail. It's quite useful for $35, and if more developers get on board it could be great.Alketi - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
Brian, if your attached pictures are any indication, you WANT a bright LED behind your TV screen.It provides a constant level ambient lighting, which allows your eyes to adjust, rather than be carried solely by the brightness of each TV/Movie scene.
Brian Klug - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - link
Well that's true, but not when I'm in my bedroom and the TV/lights are off and I'm trying to sleep, and the Chromecast lights up a corner of the room. Seriously, the thing is BRIGHT!-Brian
ioconnor - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
What does this thing do? All I got from skimming was that it wasn't some other product. And that whatever it is suppose to do might not be done. Yet.Better yet go back to talking about computers. That I can understand.
Kepe - Thursday, August 1, 2013 - link
Eh.. Perhaps you should read the article properly before commenting you don't understand it.