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Google Breaks ChromeCast's Ability To Play Local Content
sfcrazy writes "Bad news for all ChromeCast users who were thinking of being able to stream local content to their HD TVs. Google has pushed an update for ChromeCast which has broken support for third-party apps like AirCast (AllCast) which allow users to 'stream' local files from their devices to ChromeCast connected TV sets."
Why am I not surprised Google?
New signature coming soon.
bad news for Google, who was hoping that I would buy such a thing.
-- Sig under construction...
How wretched and nasty of Google to so suddenly turn to the dark side, and render the hardware useless.
I don't know much (even after reading the article), but it seems more like as if they just want the chromecast to dish out online content so that google can keep on feeding people adds.
... and probably still will, as long as it's able to play any arbitrary content from Chrome. My idea was to drop all my media into a web-servable directory on a small server in my house and use Chrome on my laptop or phone to browse to that directory, then click the "send to chromecast" button to send it to my TV. That should still work, right? Is there anyone here who has one and is using it in that way? It's the only reason I'd get one -- I have no use at all for Yet Another Way to play hulu, netflix, youtube, etc.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Had this been Microsoft we'd be hearing that this is proof that Ballmer was sacrificing virgin children to Satan.
You guys really like to suck on that Google dick, don't ya?
Between Microsoft and Google, one is
(1) an ad agency that
(2) monetizes your private details and
(3) has a private jumbo jet for executives.
The other sells crappy software.
This leaves me still looking for a way to play arbitrary local media files on my TV; I don't terribly feel like waiting for stuff to buffer - if an online service will deign to give me a sufficiently large buffer - so I always download in advance whenever feasible.
/.ers are going to be in need of a new playback device so let's try to be productive here.
Don't say "an HTPC" - I don't want to run a space heater to do this. Many Android dongles I've seen are out of date or will soon be out of date, and offer lousy codec support to boot. If you've found an exception to that, be my guest - a great many of us
When I powered cycled my ChromeCast a couple of hours ago, I noticed that it installed a new update.
I then launch my Chrome browser and open several local files of type MP4 (video), PDF, and PPT (powerpoint), and I am still able to successfully cast these to my ChromeCast on my HDTV, with this type of URL:
file://{LOCAL_DIRECTORY}/{LOCAL_FILE}
Even the MP4 video plays nice on my HDTV in FullScreen.
I have not had time to do a packet inspection yet via WireShark, so I cannot speak about the complexity of the protocol used to transmit the content locally.
I am not denying that something with ChromeCast might have changed, since the author is likely telling the truth, and may have been using some "hack" or trick that they used to simplify incorporating their 3rd party support.
But considering that I have my Chrome browser at version 29.0.1547.57 which was not updated in the last 5 days, I would think that any 3rd party app could still be modified to support ChromeCast with the same protocol used by the Chrome browser, NetFlix, YouTube, etc.
My raspberry pi and Ouya still play any arbitrary content I throw at them. Take that, Google.
Well, don't leave us hanging! Which one is which?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Have you not been paying attention to the last 10 years? Apple has repeatedly shown they've tried to beat down this sort of restrictive shit.
Remember who resulted in music losing DRM.
Apple is the rapist of ecosystems using walled prisons; proprietary connectors; proprietary API; proprietary software. They actually got caught for illegal monopolistic practices with Publishers...and have been forced to allow other companies to publish on their not your devices. The MP3 thing was a war attrition, Companies were offering DRM free on other platforms before Apple. Their not your books and movies still are.
That came off slightly more cynical than I intended. In truth, I have nothing but gratitude for much of what hippie Google chose to do. My point at this juncture, however, is that that was then, this is now.
In much the same way that the terrorists succeeded in reshaping America in their own image (two crushed fingers was all it took), Facebook has succeeded in reinventing Google in their own image. Zuck, like Bill, was way ahead of his time right from the get go.
As far as I'm concerned Google+ is hardly any different than America+. Any symbol that leaves you asking "plus what?" is not to be trusted. What of this unary additive? Those who know are not entitled to say. Happily, that's as much as we need to know to guess what shape that mark will take once it reaches adult height, wreathed in flames.
Frankly I am surprised in this case. Being able to stream content is a selling point with broad appeal, unlike say Other OS on the PS3 which was only used by a tiny fraction of PS3 owners.
Good argument, except it's unlikely they are making money on the hardware, so the goal is not to sell Chromecast devices, the goal is to allow people to buy Chromecast devices at cost in order to be able to sell content, and to sell content in order to sell advertising. For a bare-bones devices, it's unlikely that additional economies of scale are going to increase their profit margin on the hardware any, and it may in fact be a loss-leader, like the PS/2 or original XBox.
I still wonder why people go through all the fuss over media players... Samsung, LG and others have TVs and Blu-Ray players that are capable of playing MKV files and such from local drives or streamed from DLNA, and the players can be had for less than $50 when you catch the right sales. As a bonus, you also can play DVDs, BDs and optical discs full of loose media files.
On the negative side, I don't get a lot of fancy presentation, and I don't have emulators and such running on it, but that's fine. I never really understood the excitement over Roku boxes - I also get plenty of online streaming services through my Blu-ray players and TV (I have one "smart" TV, but the rest in the house have the aforementioned Blu-Ray players).
For anything beyond that, I'll build an HTPC so I can also leverage my Steam library (not too excited about the next gen consoles, either).
Is this a surprise to anyone? Did anyone really think that once Google had control of hardware and software they'd eventually get around to limiting you to content purchased through them (or one of their partners)?
Don't buy a Chromecast if you want to view media you own or have made yourself. There are other similar devices that will let you do what you want to do.
The only thing that can keep a corporation from becoming totally evil is the consumers. The boardroom is an incubator for evil. If you want to keep a company from doing bad, you have to be a strategic consumer.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I have never had a Chinese product magically lose features after i bought it. Its pretty sad, and ironic, when you have to go to Communist china to get products that support your freedom..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
There seems to be a lot of raking Google over the coals ... but the only thing we have here is a single report, approved to the slashdot front page by timothy.
At this point, since not a single person has confirmed it on here, I'm inclined to believe there is no such breakage and this is just another example of timothy approving something stupid that he shouldn't be allowed to even read, let alone approve.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Right now, Im playing an .mp4 located on my NAS, opened from my mac and streaming to my Chromecast via Chrome tab. So what did this break?
Good-bye
The only reason for buying a ChromeCast
I would recommend the Raspberry Pi over the Ouya. I have both, and they are both cool, but the killer feature of the Raspberry Pi is that it supports CEC. This means that if you have a TV that also supports the CEC standard, you don't need two remotes. Your TV remote will automatically work for controlling your Raspberry Pi with no extra hardware and no software configuration other than ticking off the check box in XBMC and on your TV to say that you want to use CEC.
Conversely, the Ouya has a Bluetooth gamepad for controlling XBMC. CEC with the remote you are already using to control your TV is a pretty find solution.
Also, I have no problem running 1080p video on the Raspberry Pi. Even SBS 3D stuff.
While it was $99, it can play movies from a USB stick OR a NAS. Plus stream from my Netflix and AmazonPrime accounts. Not all that interested in the 100 other streaming services they offer. I bought it because I could plug in a USB stick and watch whatever. They added the NAS feature recently.
Read Koush's actual post - the update breaks his Cast app for Android, which works around the app whitelisting to stream directly. Nothing says anywhere that casting arbitrary content from Chrome tabs is broken.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
but instead of the boringly predictable GOOGLE IS EVIL!!!!1eleventy karma-whoring[1], shall we examine why exactly this third-party program broke with the new update?
Were they, perchance, using an undocumented API, or one that was known to be unstable?
This seems to be the public API for Chromecast: https://developers.google.com/cast/devprev
but I'm not enough of a programmer to tell if there's explicit support for the kind of thing AirCast does; however, get a load of this:
So it seems my guess was correct and you're all bellyaching about a program taking advantage of an unstable API, with a feature not guaranteed to be there, and when the documentation recommends not distributing production apps yet.
In short, non-story click-whoring. I hope you're proud of yourselves.
[1] I know I'll get modded down for this, but...
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Google never said you could stream local content
Say my brother is in a band. How should I play this band's music? Besides, Google never explicitly said that users of Android phones could do specific things with the phones that apps eventually enabled.
All they've done is change an undocumented, unsupported API
And replaced it with which documented, supported API? If none, then the fact that Google has taken explicit effort to ensure that the answer is none reveals something about Google's plans for this device that would make a lot of people have skipped buying the device.
I bought one right after the initial announcement, as soon as they went on sale. I bought it for the only two announced features- direct streaming from the cloud for Netflix, Play, and Youtube, as well as the ability to Tab-cast other things like HBO-Go. The 'Allcast' features that Koush demonstrated only made it better. So, I ordered another for my main room, where I currently have a Logitech Revue GoogleTV. The Revue falls short in local video playback, so I was hoping to replace it with the Chromecast. With the removal of local video playback capability, I've cancelled my order, and will once again look for a solution from other platforms.