Chromecast now available in the UK!

Em3bbs said:
US Chromecast? Do a factory reset as someone else kindly suggested to me in the thread earlier.
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It was working although kept buffering on the first day of Chromecasts release. Since then, white screens with errors.

MoRT489 said:
What is the point of the Chromecast app other than for initial setup? it doesnt seem to do anything.
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Not a lot however you can reset/restart or factory reset the device from the app. It's mainly there for configuration only though.
 
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Got one the other day and it's OK, for me at least. My TV is old and dumb and I use OpenELEC on the Raspberry Pi to play my local media, so the Chromecast fills in the gap to get Netflix, iPlayer, Youtube, etc. on the TV.

If people already own something the will provide these services (smart TV, XBOX, Playstation, etc.) then I cannot see Chromecast being much use for them. This may change as more apps add support, but for the moment it feels a bit of a niche product.
 
photoshop said:
This is how i have done it also. Plays 1080p mkv's just fine ;)
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I do miss my HTPC running XBMC and down the line I'll repair/replace the HTPC and go back to XBMC, but for now the Chromecast working with PLEX (which is a fork of XBMC) will do!

I've not looked at the profile being used by PLEX for the Chromecast, but I'll guess that it isn't streaming the videos as they are, probably reencoding at a lower bitrate on the fly. Not checked yet.

I can't work out how to queue stuff with the PLEX android app. For example a few TV eps. There is a queue tab in the app...!
 
LadFromWales said:
I've not looked at the profile being used by PLEX for the Chromecast, but I'll guess that it isn't streaming the videos as they are, probably reencoding at a lower bitrate on the fly. Not checked yet.
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I think there is some encoding going on because my PC CPU usage hits 100% when streaming MKV's.
I've got my plex to play at maximum possible resolution which is 20mbps for local content.

Good news is that my PS3 can see the plex server and i can stream 1080p MKV's to it without any issues. I previously used PS3 media server app but it had issues with some MKV's but plex plays everything!

Might get another 2 chromecasts for the downstairs TV's (only have it for teh bedroom at the moment) just so that i can stream mkv's to the otehr two PS3's i have downstairs.

And yes, i do have 3 TV's and 3 PS3's in my house ;)
 
photoshop said:
Good news is that my PS3 can see the plex server and i can stream 1080p MKV's to it without any issues. I previously used PS3 media server app but it had issues with some MKV's but plex plays everything!

Might get another 2 chromecasts for the downstairs TV's (only have it for teh bedroom at the moment) just so that i can stream mkv's to the otehr two PS3's i have downstairs.
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Why would you need two more Chromecasts to stream your Plex content to the PS3s?
 
Em3bbs said:
Why would you need two more Chromecasts to stream your Plex content to the PS3s?
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Just tested it on all the PS3's and they have no issues playing 1080p files over wifi using Plex so wont need another two chromecasts but I might still get them to play content (family pics/videos etc) from our phones. Would make it easier for the skirt...at £30 it would be rude not to and then all of our phones can easily stream personal content to it which even the noobs in my family shouldn't struggle with
 
Is this nothing more than a device to make your TV an external display for a selection of apps on your phone, tablet and PC? Or am I missing other functionality?

Seems a bit of a nothing device considering there are Android sticks out there that are an 'actual' device you can install things on, or streaming devices that work directly from source rather than needing a phone or something in the middle?
 
So I got mine today and been playing with it, liking it overall, Netflix quality is up there with the PS3 but much quicker to start playing and searching as well. Youtube and Google Music work nicely, not tried the Google tv/films but might give that a go to check quality.

Also tried the streaming from XBMC using Yatse, it uses the UPnP setup on XBMC which unfortunately means that because XBMC doesn't do transcoding the video/audio formats need to be supported by the Chromecast. When they are supported it works great, but of the videos I have that I tried around half didn't work at all and some played video with no audio.
 
Yes that's plex.

Anyone else get iPlayer working? I tap cast icon but it just sits with an animated icon doing nothing. All other apps work fine.
 
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