Lightbox to support Chromecast within a few weeks

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381 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1323225 12-Jun-2015 09:29

davidrg:
mattwnz: What would it take to get it to 5/5? For me it would be more content, and ability to add playlists, or queue programs.

For me it would be automatically queueing up the next episode like Netflix and a properly integrated xbox app.

If you've not seen it, xbox (both 360 and one) has a tv/movie storefront thing. I always assumed this just shows content available from Microsofts Xbox Video service. Turns out it actually shows everything across all services available on xbox in your region - xbox video, netflix and quickflix. If a movie or tv series is available on multiple services it just asks you which one you'd like to watch it on and it opens in the appropriate app. This feature might make using multiple services a bit easier.

Yes very 'flash' that is. Gives me the warm fuzzies to know that Microsoft cares about its customers choice. I am finding Xbox Video a great service so far.

mobilised

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1323252 12-Jun-2015 10:53

Lightbox app has been working well for me on Samsung Note 8, casting from within the Lightbox app to my single Chromecast device. The wifi signal strength is weak-to-medium in the room (Note 8 and Chromecast are in the same room, 20 metres or more from the wifi router. ADSL downstream 12 Mbps, Spark ISP).

Play commences within several seconds. No buffering during 50-minute episodes. Pause, restart and forward all work correctly.

The only defect I have noticed so far: if I finish an episode, leave casting on and select a different series and an episode and tap Play, then it appears to start loading but does not get anywhere, even after several minutes. My workaround is to back out, turn casting off, select episode and tap Play, then turn casting on ONCE PLAY HAS STARTED.

Even with this defect, this setup is more convenient than laptop & web browser plus HDMI cable to TV.

For TV on demand that doesn’t have apps with built-in Chromecast support, the options are:

a)      From Android tablet use web browser and cast the whole device screen (Chromcast app … “Cast Screen” option). This works with ChoiceTV web site, but not TV3’s 3Now or TVNZ On Demand web sites – on those the web page is displayed but the video section of the page is just black or displays an error message. This is because the latter two services restrict display onto “external” large format screens, probably because their digital rights do not extend to larger formats? (although see (b) below)

b)      Use laptop and web browser and HDMI cable. Works for all three of these services.

c)       Use laptop and Chrome web browser and cast the browser tab to Chromecast. Does this display the video? Haven’t tried it yet.

toyonut

1508 posts

Uber Geek

#1324608 14-Jun-2015 20:28

paulmilbank:
michaelmurfy: I just get this but am also using Cyanogenmod on my S5:

I get the same thing on my Huawei Honor 6 running stock 4.4.2. Is there any debugging we can send?

In a weird twist, I can queue up a video and cast it in the app and it works fine, it is only local playback on the device that is not working.

Try Vultr using this link and get us both some credit:

http://www.vultr.com/?ref=7033587-3B

mattwnz

20141 posts

Uber Geek

#1324666 14-Jun-2015 23:32

mobilised: Lightbox app has been working well for me on Samsung Note 8, casting from within the Lightbox app to my single Chromecast device. The wifi signal strength is weak-to-medium in the room (Note 8 and Chromecast are in the same room, 20 metres or more from the wifi router. ADSL downstream 12 Mbps, Spark ISP).

Play commences within several seconds. No buffering during 50-minute episodes. Pause, restart and forward all work correctly.

The only defect I have noticed so far: if I finish an episode, leave casting on and select a different series and an episode and tap Play, then it appears to start loading but does not get anywhere, even after several minutes. My workaround is to back out, turn casting off, select episode and tap Play, then turn casting on ONCE PLAY HAS STARTED.

My workaround for this is to scrub it halfway into the program, then scrub back to the beginning, and it then loads.

I have had it stop during playback, a few times, and scrubbing it forward and backwards gets it going again. It seems reasonably relieable, infact it it probably more reliable than youtubes own app when it comes to resuming the devices app during playback.

MikeAqua

7773 posts

Uber Geek

#1334120 30-Jun-2015 13:53

I seem to be having this issue as of the last few days. A pop up message appears to say the Chromecast connection is lost, then a message saying it is restored and it toggles back and forth between the two. There appears to be no way to dismiss the notifications. Like others I have noticed that it gets in the way.

I also get notifications saying Lightbox has stopped working, when it isn't actually running - ie I have exited the app and removed it from the recent programs list.

Lightbox:
Killerkiwi2005: Ok most annoying issue ever!, when chromecast was used for previous episode its impossible to select the last episode of the season as the chomecast popup at the bottom covers the episode play button!

Cheers, we've already caught that one and will get it sorted.

Mike

andrew027

1286 posts

Uber Geek

#1334132 30-Jun-2015 14:10

MikeAqua: I also get notifications saying Lightbox has stopped working, when it isn't actually running - ie I have exited the app and removed it from the recent programs list.

I've been getting this as well - after not having used Lightbox for a couple of days, and having removed it from the recent apps list, once even after restarting the phone, sometimes I'll unlock my phone and there is a message says Lightbox has stopped working. Makes me wonder what work it's doing when I'm not using it...

davidrg

67 posts

Master Geek

#1334278 30-Jun-2015 16:18

andrew027:
MikeAqua: I also get notifications saying Lightbox has stopped working, when it isn't actually running - ie I have exited the app and removed it from the recent programs list.

I've been getting this as well - after not having used Lightbox for a couple of days, and having removed it from the recent apps list, once even after restarting the phone, sometimes I'll unlock my phone and there is a message says Lightbox has stopped working. Makes me wonder what work it's doing when I'm not using it...

I get it every time I give it focus after its been in the background since the previous night. Possibly lightbox has been unloaded from memory and something is going wrong when Android tries to resume it.

I always get two or three of these errors in a row which may just be some background services crashing alongside the main app

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Wade

2225 posts

Uber Geek

#1334361 30-Jun-2015 18:16

I get the stopped working message randomly on the android app, I don't even use the app, I have cleared ram, swiped away all apps, shut down, rebooted not used app and still had the error message appear so there is definitely something not quite right

clod

64 posts

Master Geek

#1334695 1-Jul-2015 09:45

Is it possible yet to use a laptop to cast to the tv thru chromecast yet ?

huckster

842 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#1334788 1-Jul-2015 10:50

andrew027:
MikeAqua: I also get notifications saying Lightbox has stopped working, when it isn't actually running - ie I have exited the app and removed it from the recent programs list.

I've been getting this as well - after not having used Lightbox for a couple of days, and having removed it from the recent apps list, once even after restarting the phone, sometimes I'll unlock my phone and there is a message says Lightbox has stopped working. Makes me wonder what work it's doing when I'm not using it...

Yep. A regular occurrence when I get to work the next day - phone says Lightbox has stopped. Have tried to "Report" the error a number of times but it then says Lightbox has stopped.

Can Lightbox comment? Why, when you leave the application gracefully, is it then "stopping" hours later?

dafman

3925 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1335231 1-Jul-2015 17:31

huckster:
andrew027:
MikeAqua: I also get notifications saying Lightbox has stopped working, when it isn't actually running - ie I have exited the app and removed it from the recent programs list.

I've been getting this as well - after not having used Lightbox for a couple of days, and having removed it from the recent apps list, once even after restarting the phone, sometimes I'll unlock my phone and there is a message says Lightbox has stopped working. Makes me wonder what work it's doing when I'm not using it...

Yep. A regular occurrence when I get to work the next day - phone says Lightbox has stopped. Have tried to "Report" the error a number of times but it then says Lightbox has stopped.

Can Lightbox comment? Why, when you leave the application gracefully, is it then "stopping" hours later?

Same here - on both Sony Xperia phone and tablet - kept getting Lightbox has stopped notifications. Don't like the idea of apps running on their own in the background when I haven't opened them (what is it doing in the background, snooping?) so uninstalled the app on both devices. Have now given up on Lightbox as a service. Only consolation is that I didn't pay anything for it.

NzBeagle

961 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#1335235 1-Jul-2015 17:38

dafman: Only consolation is that I didn't pay anything for it.

This is me. In 3 months time if it's not fixed I won't renew.

Lightbox

301 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

Lightbox

#1335509 2-Jul-2015 08:53

Hi guys,

That doesn't sound right at all. We'll see if we can reproduce and get it fixed.

A quick guess would be background Chromecast processes not shutting down properly. Are you seeing any sort of pattern around it?

Lightbox - we are online TV.

huckster

842 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#1335521 2-Jul-2015 09:08

Lightbox: Hi guys,

That doesn't sound right at all. We'll see if we can reproduce and get it fixed.

A quick guess would be background Chromecast processes not shutting down properly. Are you seeing any sort of pattern around it?

Most often - not always - it's the next day after I arrive at work. So the possible link there is switching from home WiFi to Mobile data to work where there is Wifi, but I don't connect to it. It does happen at home though.

stevenz

2802 posts

Uber Geek

#1335676 2-Jul-2015 12:37

clod: Is it possible yet to use a laptop to cast to the tv thru chromecast yet ?

Should be able to cast the Lightbox tab if you're using Chrome?

@KnightNZ

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