60 Issue 1404
David Briddock explainshowtoget morefromyourChromecastChromecast
Tips, Tricks and Apps
I
n July 2013 Googlereleased a small, thumb-drive sized HDMI
device that quickly leapt to the top of the sales charts. Called the
Chromecast, this £30 device brought the world of online streaming
media to any television with an HDMI socket, and it promised
desktop, laptop, tablet and smartphone owners an affordable
wireless big-screen experience.Inside
For £30, or $35 in the US, you might not expect all that much from
a Chromecast dongle, and it’s true that many buyers settle on for
using arelatively small list of Android and Apple iOS mobile apps like
YouTube, Netflix and iPlayer – while desktop and laptop PC owners
cast the contents of a their Chrome browser tabs, but not much else.
However, underneath that diminutive case there’s a surprising
amount of power. Inside a Chromecast dongle there’s a mini
system-on-a-chip processor, with 512MB of RAM and 2GB of flash
storage, and a hardware-based decoder delivers smooth video
experience at 1080p HDMI.Taken together this little package is
enough to run a simplified version of Chrome OS, similar to what
you’d find on a Chromebook laptop or Chromebox desktop.And it’s the inclusion of this highly capable and well understood
operating system that delivers so much potential. Most importantly
it has a built-in wi-fi module, complete with tiny antennas, which
communicate bidirectionally with the home’s wi-firouter and
nearby PCs, smartphones and tablets. These computing devices
can then act as a smartremote television controller using the CEC
standard (see boxout).
With all this capability wrapped up in the diminutive Chromecast
case there’s lots of potential to improve and extend the user
experience. Here are a few tips, tricks and app suggestions to unlock
the true potential of your Chromecast.Second-GenerationChromecast
In 2015, around two years after the initialrelease, Google announced
the second incarnation of its Chromecast dongle. This new version
has superior video streaming performance thanks to an upgraded
internal dual-band wi-firouter and improvements in the wireless
antenna array.
Chromecast 2 is easily identified by itsround case and short
flat HDMI cable. It also comes in three colours; yellow, black,