Chromecast is the Cable killer....dicusss

[Old and In the Way]

It's the truth goddammit.

[onehandle]

1. Apple TV and Roku were there before, without selling your data to the highest bidder. nt

[dballance]

2. Good point, however,

The really cheap price of chromecast will likely get tons of people to buy it without regard to privacy.

[Old and In the Way]

3. Had Roku 4 years ago....Chromecast is smaller, better.

Have no idea how this makes me any more vulnerable than I was 10 years ago. As a Google adoptee.

[Old and In the Way]

4. Seriously, do you think Apple cares about your privacy?

[onehandle]

9. Seriously, do you know that Google is the biggest ad company in the world?

And that anything else that they do is to support their real customers?..

...personal data hungry ad spammers?

Those who open their flies to their 'free services' are known as victims.

[Old and In the Way]

10. So, Apple, I should trust in?

Thanks onehandle... otherwise I could just pretend that everyone I know enjoy/gets Netflix and Youtube on their primary video system. And, seriously, ads be damned.

[Xithras]

22. Chromecast collects no data. Quit making things up.

Chromecast has been analyzed up one side and down the other by some of the best hackers on the planet looking for something nefarious or exploitable. It does exactly what Google says it does. No more, no less. And no data collection.

And it is, by far, the best bang for the buck in the Smart TV market today. The AppleTV and Roku boxes could take a few lessons from it.

[onehandle]

26. So you don't have to sign in with a Google account?

Or use any of their services while it is watching you?

Interesting....

[Old and In the Way]

30. Actually, you don't.

I just signed out of my Google account, then hit the cast button in my browser and it connected my TV to my browser.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

5. Question about Chromecast

Does anyone know, can you stream VLC media player content (or any other media player, for that matter) using Chromecast? I have a "TV PC" already connected, but it wouldn't be necessary if Chromecast will stream video files.

[pkdu]

7. This might answer your question...

http://www.gizmag.com/5-ways-to-get-more-out-of-google-chromecast/29125/

[DisgustipatedinCA]

13. Thanks...it does

It doesn't look like .mkv files will work, but other formats should.

[WeekendWarrior]

16. You Can Play Local Files

By simply opening Chrome, hitting Control (or Command)+O and that will open your file system. Choose a file and click and it will play in Chrome. You then Chromecast that tab to your TV and play it full screen.

[Old and In the Way]

31. Thanks for the tip...I was wondering how to do this.

I had to add the chromecast extension to my Chrome browser...I assume Firefox and other browsers have similar extensions. Once I added the extension, it places a cast button in the browser, which the user clicks to cast to their TV or other device.

[dembotoz]

6. would prefer to use the phrase pay tv

cable cos provide some great broadband options that make chromecast possible

cable killer does not include such travesties as u-verse which is also worth of death

[davidpdx]

8. The cable killer starts with a "t" and ends with a "t"

as least for us outside the US.

[solarhydrocan]

15. at least until the TPP & TAFTA become law

when the local ISP is *required* to monitor for pirate video it's over

[davidpdx]

25. Well the country I am in hasn't agreed to sign on to the TPP and isn't in the TAFTA

Hoping it won't pass.

[krawhitham]

11. Not even close

What drive cables viewers is 24 hour news channels and live sports

Chromecast does neither

What does Chromecast offer?
Netflix
Hulu
HBO Go (you need to have HBO on a cable system to partake)
Pandora (Radio stations)
YouTube
VEVO (music videos)
Red Bull.TV (A giant Red Bull commercial)
Songza (more music)
PostTV (video clips from The Washington Post)
Viki (Korean dramas & Japanese anime)



There are a lot of devices that do what Chromecast does and they have been around for a few years, only thing Chromrcast going for it is the $35 price tag. Spend a few bucks more on a device that will do Amazon Prime and local media (Without using a PC to transcode videos)

[VanillaRhapsody]

12. actually you are wrong...

Chromecast works in chrome on your computer or on your phone. You click a button on the video anywhere and it will cast most of them to the TV.

Chromecast is NOT the same thing as a Roku...when you have access to one...you will see the stark difference.

I happen to have both (including a Roku2 and a Roku3) AND an Android stick. I like them all for very different reasons.

[WeekendWarrior]

17. Chromecast is the First One to Really get it Right

I've used several of them, including Roku, and Chromecast beats them all. Not simply because of price, but because of the ability to play ANYTHING you can play in your browser (with only one exception that I've found).

[Xithras]

23. Chromecast has one thing that the others don't. Lots and lots of porn.

Whether or not you care for porn, it's an economic reality that porn helps to drive new technologies. The closed AppleTV ecosystem doesn't support porn at all. The Roku boxes only have a few dozen pay porn channels (and one free channel), and only support a handful of formats if you want to play downloaded videos. Chromecast, on the other hand, will play virtually any video you can find from any site in the world, meaning that you can stream a nearly infinite number of free HD porn movies to your TV for only $35.

I've read a number of articles from pundits speculating that Google will eventually sell tens of millions of Chromecast units worldwide for that one "feature" alone. For better or worse, it will help them gain a LOT marketshare.

Personally, I just use my XBox for everything. Using the DNLA app, I can even send music and video from my Android phone directly to the XBox and my home entertainment system. It supports pretty much every media service right out of the box, can be run entirely by voice commands, etc., etc. I happen to think that the Chromecast is a brilliant bit of tech, and I spent the $35 on mine, but I still tend to end up on the XBox when I actually want to stream something. Its just...simple.

[LeftyMom]

14. Does it have baseball?

I'm not canceling shit until I can get 162 Giants games a year in 1080p. Because priorities.

[pstokely]

19. mlb.tv and proxy server might work

nt

[LeftyMom]

21. Everything I'm looking at online says the resolution is terrible.

That's why I specified 1080p. If it looks like shit on my tv (and admittedly, it's a ridiculously big tv, but I got a good deal and I only have the one) it's no use to me.

[onehandle]

27. Apple TV has the dedicated MLB app. nt

[politichew]

18. We need a la carte cable service and hopefully devices like this will force their hand. nt

[pstokely]

20. Will they ever offer ESPN a la carte?

Last edited Tue Dec 17, 2013, 05:17 AM - Edit history (1)

probably not, it's hugely profitable due to the number of people who never watch sports who pay cable bills

[Chan790]

24. A la carte cable service is the worst thing for consumers that consumers really think they want.

None. Literally none. Of the best programming on TV is profitable. (Four years in NYC in the TV/Film industry and a best friend who is a producer for USA and NBC and previously for HBO taught me that.)

A la carte TV programming would be the death of quality programming. The driver of the market would not be the best programming (which allows them to sell and promote a suite of channel offerings, mostly unwanted)...but cheapest programming that will draw eyes. (and make every channel independently profitable.) Get ready for wall-to-wall reality programs, late-night infomercials, religious programming, foreign syndicated imports, reruns of old shows, very little new content and none of the show you love now with their million-dollar budgets. The reality of a la carte TV doesn't look like what consumers think it'll look like (they think it'll look like a lot of HBOs, that that will be the model to emulate)...it looks like the bastard child of TLC and the local independent TV station...remember those, back in the bad old UHF days? The over-the-air stations that were not affiliated with a network to provide programming and used to show MASH reruns and Jimmy Swaggart and whatever content they could produce locally cheap? Networks love the idea of A la Carte because they believe it will murder cable and hand them back complete dominance of market share.

A channel like AMC makes back what they lose on a show like Breaking Bad not by going cheaper elsewhere on the schedule or selling more ads. (That, at-best, gets them to break-even.) They make their money because they can foist 4 other channels on your cable provider as the cost of getting AMC...because both AMC and your cable provider know you're going to flip out and cancel service if you can't get your AMC to watch Breaking Bad and Mad Men. Discovery and the 8 Discovery owned channels...same thing. FX Networks...not only do they own several channels, they also are sitting on a mountain of syndicated Fox content that costs them nothing to show...on six channels that you have to pay for to get the three shows you might watch. ESPN Networks...you may not have noticed this, but other than ESPN, the rest of that package costs fuck-all to produce; ESPN Main (aka. ESPN, ESPN1) is a red-ink geyser...paid for by the fact that if you want ESPN and ESPNNews you have to pay for ESPN2, ESPN3 and ESPNDeportes (ESPN2/3 show secondary-tier sports that they acquire rights to for dollars/hour and overflow programming from ESPN1. ESPNDeportes is ESPN1 with the SAP feed set to the main feed. ESPNNews costs them the cost of a set and paying hosts...which is cheap. They get the same price for all those channels. One of them loses money and the rest make it up.)

Switch to A la Carte and you might as well not own a TV...the medium will be ruined. Well, maybe not...maybe you hate original cable programming and really miss Barney Miller and want to see more Benny Hinn on your TV.

The other option is for channel providers to each charge enough to produce quality content...and the overall cost of your a la carte subscriptions will be 2x-7x higher for less content/less-channels. People won't pay it and again competitive balance shifts back to big network.

[brooklynite]

28. Not a cable killer if you can't get cable...

SOME cable companies make SOME programs available through the web. Not the same range of channels and programs.

[Proud Public Servant]

29. It's going to kill something, but not cable.

The model here is radio. Once upon a time every listened to the radio; info junkies listened to AM, music lovers listened to FM. Then along came the iPod. Today, for young people who love music, radio is dead -- but AM radio is till going strong.

Chromecast won't kill cable. But it may mean the cable of the future looks more like a basic cable package and less like the bells-and-whistles packages of today.

What it will kill, though, are the networks. There's no logic for their continued existence.

[bhikkhu]

32. Maybe, but I stream Netflix through my old sony bluray player

...and its set up to stream youtube, amazon, hulu, etc. It was a $65 player I got a year ago, and we pay $8 a month for the streaming service, which (if I understand it right) is basically the same thing chromecast would do?