Thursday, August 15, 2013

Google Chromecast

After trying to watch a Vimeo video on my Panasonic TV, I'm now sold on the Chomecast:

1) pressing buttons on the normal TV remote sometimes didn't work. Batteries dying?  Not clear.  True a smartphone's batteries only last a day, but when the power is dead, it's obvious.

2) using up/down/left/right keys on a TV remote to gradually pick out letters on a search box is not fun.

3) after this process, the Vimeo TV app gave me 9/533 matches, but none of the matches were my video, nor was there a way to see page two of results!

Here's the eventual workflow for watching Vimeo on the TV:

0) associate TV Vimeo app with my Vimeo account

1) boot up laptop, log into Vimeo

2) laptop: find video, click "Watch Later"

3) TV: wait

4) TV: magic happens, video appears on the beginning of the Watch Later list

5) TV: click Select to watch first video

After all that, the video play was like a laptop: audio/video occasionally stutters.  Pressing play and waiting a minute seems to help, but it's not clear.  On the other hand, video and audio quality is quite good.

It looks like the Chromecast version of this is:

1) use tablet to find video

2) click "Send to Chomecast"

3) there is no #3

I'm sold!

(And yes I know Vimeo doesn't support the Chromecast; I'm just going over the overall thing here.)

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