* Posts by dalewking

3 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Jul 2013

Google Chromecast: Here's why it's the most important smart TV tech ever

dalewking

Slingbox??? @jake

Slingbox??? How is Slingbox in any way related to Chromecast?

Ignoring the large price difference between the two, it seems to me that they are pretty much polar opposites.

Chromecast is answering the question, "I am in front of my TV, how can I get content that would be displayed on my phone/tablet/laptop and have it shown on the TV."

Slingbox is answering the question, "I am NOT in front of my TV, how can I get content that would be displayed on the TV and have it shown on my phone/tablet/laptop."

dalewking

Re: @dalewking

Yes, that is the beauty of Googlecast. It is just software. That is why I expect it to actually be incorporated into TVs and other hardware boxes like Roku. It is essentially a very cheap way to add web apps to your television screen with almost no cost. When it gets incorporated into other devices the cost will be essentially zero add-on.

Please enlighten me on what this other hardware is that is out there that does what Googlecast does for the same price. I don't know of any. There are more powerful devices that cost more and with which you interact with through an awful remote control interface.

I have a device under my TV (a full home theater PC) that is much more powerful and more expensive but still can't easily do some of what Chromecast can do. If I want to watch a YouTube video on the TV, I have no easy way to do it. My television is not a smart TV, so that route is out. I end up having to grab my big wireless keyboard, open the browser, go to you tube, search for the video, try again because typing on the IR keyboard missed a letter, once it opens expand it to full screen. I'll take hitting one button on my phone or tablet any day.

You must be from outside the US, because Virgin and Sky are not supplying any of my media content. And that is another point that it lets anyone in on the interactive media front without having to go through another company.

I agree that media streaming is very important. My point was that if that was all that Googlecast did, I would agree that it is only interesting as a cheap alternative. But there is so much more potential than that.

It could have been a full-fledged Android device, but not at $35. If you want a full-fledged Android device its called GoogleTV that costs >$100 and note that it too will also support GoogleCast.

I disagree that a lot more people would buy a device that costs 3 times as much (75 pounds ~= $115 dollars vs.$35). One of my points was that it is not about hardware, it is about the Googlecast protocol itself. The $35 device is just the first implementation of the protocol, priced to make it an easy decision to buy. Eventually, if TV's and other set top boxes adopt it you won't even have to think about the $35 cost.

We'll have to see how it plays out. I won't make predictions, but it certainly has a great deal of potential, What I was trying to stress was that potential goes far beyond simple playing of video. We'll have to see what smart developers can do with that potential.

dalewking

Finally, someone in the press that can see how groundbreaking this is.

Thanks Neil for understanding just how important Googlecast might be. Too many people (like many of your commenters here) only see this as a way to get video onto your TV. If that is all you think it is then it is easy to think that it does nothing more than Airplay or DLNA and not see what the big deal is.

Many in the press compare it to Roku and ask which should you buy. In reality, Google cast is something that will get incorporated into Roku or your future television.

The correct way to see the potential is to ask yourself for any given app on your smartphone, is there any way that app can be enhanced if the app could control your large television display to display video, audio, text, images, or anything else that you can do in a web page. Certainly when one thinks of Youtube and Netflix it is easy to see that yes these can be greatly enhanced if the video and audio could be played on the television. But the potential goes far beyond this.

An alternative approach is to ask if for any given streaming media content could that content be enhanced by having the interactivity from a secondary smaller touch screen device that has better ways to interact than a clunky remote, including touch capability, audio input, accelerometers, and speech recognition.

To see the full potential requires some imagination and it will take years for developers to come up with new ways to use it that we haven't even thought of yet.

Here are a couple of thoughts off the top of my head. These are probably going to sound lame. If you went back in time 20 years ago and explained to someone at that time some of the top internet properties, you would sound pretty lame as well.

Imagine a shopping app like Zappos. Buying shoes using a little 4 inch screen is a bit sketchy. Imagine if as you browsed shoes the app sent high def video and images of the shoes to your television so you can see what you are buying in greater detail.

Imagine something like taking an online class from your smartphone. It could show the lecture on the big screen and your phone could be used for asking questions or the teacher could ask the students questions that they answer on their phone.

Imagine more interactivity with streaming video content. Say you are watching a live stream of the emmy awards and there is polling on your phone to vote for who you think will win the category and a way to post comments. Or a streaming internet game show that lets you play along with the contestants.

There is lots of potential for casual gaming as well using the display of the big screen and you phone as a controller. You won't have the horsepower to do a first-person shooter, but there are certainly many more casual games that would work.

Certainly many things like these can be sort of be done now using different unconnected apps or relying on expensive hardware like a game box or a full-fledged computer, but not with all the simplicity and tight integration you could get with Googlecast.

When you imagine some of the things that could be done it is easy to see that this is so much more than an Airplay or DLNA copy.

So I think you'll eventually see many things you can do with Googlecast that haven't even been imagined yet. Developers need to time to come up with ways to use it since it is breaking new ground.