Chromecast Ultra - very choppy from browser

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lissie

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#207532 31-Dec-2016 22:21

OK - not very happy with a chromecast I gave my partner for Xmas. We have 100/20 fibre and on speedtest my laptop in the lounge gets about 30/20 on wifi. The 1st gen ipad mini will cast youtube to the chromcast fine - the ted app keeps on getting an error from chromcast and refusing to connect to it. Tried using chrome to cast e.g Amazon Video from the laptop and it was impossible to watch.

I don't understand - if the laptop can get a good stream on wifi - why can't it cast to the Chrome cast at a good speed? Particularly with the ipad can via the app and I know from experience that the ipad had a slower wifi than my laptop?

Also it appears that the chrome cast extension doesn't work on iOS - so how do you cast from an ipad to the TV if there is no app? ie Amazon Video - TVonDemand etc etc

Have a got a dud chromcast?

I help authors publish their books - DIYPublishing.co.nz

gzt

17125 posts

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#1696948 31-Dec-2016 22:31

Do you have the Chromecast on ethernet?

richms

28176 posts

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#1696950 31-Dec-2016 22:36

You cant cast on ios unless the app supports it. Apple would prefer you buy their ecosystem for screensharing which is an apple tv.

Casting from the laptop depends on if its a cast enabled website or not. Unfortunatly chrome doesnt make that too clear and you can end up tab casting when you thought you were casting the content. Tab casting has the PC recompress what is on the screen and send it across the lan to be decompressed, so the video comes in from the internet, gets decoded to the display (at a wrong FPS usually) then recompressed and sent out to the chromecast as quickly as the PC can. Makes for ugly juddery dropout prone playback.

If the webpage is cast enabled then it simply sends the online source of the content over to the corresponding app that gets loaded on the chromecast. So if you cast play music for example the chromecast will pull an app down to deal with play music and then open the content in that, which is why you get album art and similar, whereas casting the tabs audio just recompresses it (badly) and sends it over the network. Skips in the browser will play out the chromecast.

Richard rich.ms

gzt

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#1696955 31-Dec-2016 23:10

Nice!

lissie

495 posts

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#1697008 1-Jan-2017 08:12

richms:

You cant cast on ios unless the app supports it. Apple would prefer you buy their ecosystem for screensharing which is an apple tv.

Casting from the laptop depends on if its a cast enabled website or not. Unfortunatly chrome doesnt make that too clear and you can end up tab casting when you thought you were casting the content. Tab casting has the PC recompress what is on the screen and send it across the lan to be decompressed, so the video comes in from the internet, gets decoded to the display (at a wrong FPS usually) then recompressed and sent out to the chromecast as quickly as the PC can. Makes for ugly juddery dropout prone playback.

If the webpage is cast enabled then it simply sends the online source of the content over to the corresponding app that gets loaded on the chromecast. So if you cast play music for example the chromecast will pull an app down to deal with play music and then open the content in that, which is why you get album art and similar, whereas casting the tabs audio just recompresses it (badly) and sends it over the network. Skips in the browser will play out the chromecast.

Thanks this is helpful - how can I tell whether soemthing is cast enabled or not? At the moment I can't find an app for tv1 or tv3 or amazon video - we ended up back with the laptop connected to the hdmi last night!

I haven't connected the chromcast to ethernet (I'd have to run a connection ) - but from what I'm hearing that's not going to help with my plan of using the under-utilized ipad for the chromcast - and his smartphone won't handle it.

Its weird - for a few minutes this morning my laptop was doing perfect casting from tvnzondemand and tv3 while located across the house from the TV. Then I tried lightbox and it was choppy - now I can't get anything to play even with the laptop in the same room as the TV.

Sort of feeling that the ecosystem isn't quite there yet

I help authors publish their books - DIYPublishing.co.nz

robjg63

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#1697026 1-Jan-2017 09:14

If you are using Chrome on your laptop, it's probably best not to use the chrome 'cast' feature built into the browser. From memory that appeared a month or two ago.

I can't be totally sure, but this might stream the data from the laptop to the Chromecast.
It's great if you want to cast your browser, or a site that isn't directly supported by Chromecast, but it does mean the data comes from the internet to your laptop, then to the Chromecast maybe more glitchy..

If you open youtube in your laptop browser and start a video, does it work if you select the cast icon in the normal youtube menu? That ought to make the Chromecast stream directly. As a test is that smooth?

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

lissie

495 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1697069 1-Jan-2017 11:08

robjg63: If you are using Chrome on your laptop, it's probably best not to use the chrome 'cast' feature built into the browser. From memory that appeared a month or two ago.

I can't be totally sure, but this might stream the data from the laptop to the Chromecast.
It's great if you want to cast your browser, or a site that isn't directly supported by Chromecast, but it does mean the data comes from the internet to your laptop, then to the Chromecast maybe more glitchy..

If you open youtube in your laptop browser and start a video, does it work if you select the cast icon in the normal youtube menu? That ought to make the Chromecast stream directly. As a test is that smooth?

I think you are right. The youtube test is working perfectly - as is lightbox now - and it wasn't. I suspect that maybe the chromecast was busy updating itself which was causing the bad performance.

I've now got everything working except for Amazon's Prime Video - which from what I've seen here hdmi is the only option for that currently

I help authors publish their books - DIYPublishing.co.nz

Dunnersfella

4086 posts

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#1697105 1-Jan-2017 12:17

Well my Chromecast ran hideously badly this morning...

I never hit that issue with my Apple TV, just saying.

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gzt

17125 posts

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#1697108 1-Jan-2017 12:26

For sure. Apple TV is a far higher spec device. The current ATV is over 3x the price of CCU.

gzt

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#1697110 1-Jan-2017 12:32

Given the comments above about the cast mechanism, ethernet to the laptop might be an interesting experiment for those cases.

Additionally, depending on the capability of the laptop there would be a large number of potential impacts on fallback casting from machine resource use.

robjg63

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#1697112 1-Jan-2017 12:36

Where the Chromecast can run an app directly it will work better than where you have to cast the browser.
Was actually surprised to see the google play store with the tvnz on demand app.
Used to be only available for Samsung devices. It let me install on a Sony tablet. Maybe the exclusive deal with Samsung has ended.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

old3eyes

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#1697231 1-Jan-2017 15:59

robjg63: Where the Chromecast can run an app directly it will work better than where you have to cast the browser.
Was actually surprised to see the google play store with the tvnz on demand app.
Used to be only available for Samsung devices. It let me install on a Sony tablet. Maybe the exclusive deal with Samsung has ended.

I think it's been there a while but there is no CC support. Pity that NZ TV networks are so backwards regarding these sort of devices. Last nite I was watching the last ep of The Blacklist shown here that I missed here due t moving house from NBC Ondemand via my Amazon Fire TV Stick.

Regards,

Old3eyes