• LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 months ago

    RIP to a real one.

    Back in the day when streaming was cheap as hell and made sense as all things were on Netflix, having a Home Mini with and a Chromecast was bliss.

    I used to have a shortcut for the phrase “I’m so tired”, it would start playing Star Trek TNG from Netflix on the Chromecast monitor and it just werked. Saved me from a bad trip once too, I was really uncomfortable on 135ug so in a desperate attempt to hold onto reality I said “alexa…uhmm…uh…hey google play RoboCop” and it just worked.

    Only thing is it played the wrong RoboCop (2014) but that only distracted me from spiraling further, like “hold up Samuel L Jackson was in this?”

    It feels weird to say but I was a genuinely happy customer. Then the home mini stopped working as well, started triggering by itself, didn’t hear words right, then the Chromecast had trouble updating firmware and rebooting. Then Netflix platformed that douchebag chapelle.

    Now all that’s left of it is the pihole I used to block ads for it.

    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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      3 months ago

      I pretty much exclusively used my chrome cast to bypass smart TV bullshit and stream my movies and TV shows stored on my pc and phone to my TV.

  • jpeps@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Uggggggghhhhhh another one for the pile. I love Chromecasts but to be fair the latest one with Google TV was a sign that things were getting shitty soon. 22% more CPU for a YouTube machine? Who cares? A home hub that needs my TV to work? Who cares? It’s like the tech industry regrets putting everything on your phone and now they want to separate it out again. Fuck off.

    • blackbirdbiryani@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Idk about you but I have a newish chromecast with google tv and it’s laggy af. So it’ll be good to have something with better specs.

    • pufferfisherpowder@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      The one with Google tv is an excellent ship for sailing the Black Sea. Get yourself a vpn, streamio, and realdebrid, and you’re set. Not that I would know

      • FixedFun@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Why else would they cancel it? It’s obvious. They know people jailbreak it like putting food in the microwave.

    • AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Not “forever” but they should continue to work it seems. They will degrade and slowly stop working over time tho, no clue how long.

  • _pete_@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I feel the original Chromecast was probably the last truly great original Google product, it was simple, it was inexpensive and it worked - you just plugged it in, joined your network and you were off, there really wasn’t anything like it at the time.

    I really hate what they’ve become.

      • _pete_@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I feels like they either badly copy (see Gemini) or don’t think about what they’re offering (see Stadia’s busted business model) they’re content to milk the existing services they’ve already got and make them worse by cramming in more ads (see YouTube, Google’s search result pages) and they cut out or dictate the web through their monopolies (see AMP and Chrome) rather than working with other parties to make good products.

        They feel like Hooli in Silicon Valley, basically the definition of a fat tech giant who doesn’t do any innovation of their own.

        • ealoe@ani.social
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          3 months ago

          Badly copy (see Gemini)

          Tf are you smoking dude, Google has been working on AI long before ChatGPT was a twinkle in Sam Altman’s eye. They didn’t release any public models because they wanted to go about it safely and not just dump the world’s best misinformation creator on the open market for anyone to use with little safeguards. All that went out the window when ChatGPT got all the press and google decided they wanted a piece of the hype, but pretending they “didn’t do any innovation of their own” in regards to AI is ludicrous. They have been at the forefront of AI development for the last decade, and the fact you think otherwise shows your only knowledge about AI is from after ChatGPT headlines started coming out.

      • CameronDev@programming.dev
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        3 months ago

        Chromecast with Google TV made the “simple” casting worse for some apps like Netflix. Instead of it casting directly, it would spawn the Netflix app and make you use the remote to reselect the show you wanted to see.

        • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          Also they made it reliant on the Google Home app, which makes it really hard to change WiFi networks. It’s a pain in the ass if you have multiple WiFi networks setup at your house.

          • CameronDev@programming.dev
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            3 months ago

            Remind me, what app did it use before? I have had Chromecast since gen 1, can’t remember any other app, but that’s probably my memory failing.

            • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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              3 months ago

              Honestly I don’t remember. I had a gen 1 Chromecast as well and I think it was just a Chromecast app. Now it’s all integrated with Google Home.

              Edit: I tried googling it and under the Wikipedia page description it showed the following. But what’s funny is if you go to the Wikipedia page, that text is no longer there.

              Originally called simply “Chromecast”, the app was released concurrently with the original Chromecast video model …

            • foggenbooty@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              I have a trusted network, an IoT network (where the CC would go), and a guest network.

              I know most people aren’t going to have the time or knowledge set up network segmentation, but it’s still good practice.

                • foggenbooty@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  I mean, yes? I’m obviously using VLANs here. I’m not running a separate switch and AP for each network…

            • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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              3 months ago

              I personally have a Comcast router/modem with its own network. I have a network switch that I plug into the router that I use for hard coded stuff. Mostly my PC and a couple other things that I want to run fast instead of convenient. Then I have a WiFi mesh network that I run for most of my other devices, including my phone.

              So for my Chromecast, if I want to stream from my phone on the mesh network, I have it on one network. But if I want to stream from my PC, I have it on another network. While with most devices, changing the network you’re connected to is simple, it’s a massive pain in the ass with a Chromecast.

              • FrederikNJS@lemm.ee
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                3 months ago

                So as far as I understand, you have

                • Outer router (Comcast), which has WiFi enabled
                • Inner router (your own), which has WiFi enabled, and further meshes with other WiFi mesh devices (or is the mesh separate?)
                • A plain switch, for stuff you want cabled and fast

                Is that correct?

                Why not get the WiFi in the Comcast router disabled, and use your inner network exclusively, such that both WiFi and ethernet devices are on the same network?

                That’s what I did with my network, and I even got the ISP to put their modem/router into bridge mode, so it’s completely transparent.

                • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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                  3 months ago

                  I could, but I like having the router network as an option to connect to. I know the point of a mesh network is to improve WiFi connectivity overall, but every once in a while it will get a bit laggy when streaming a video. Probably because I’ve got like 90 some devices connected to it. I like having the option to switch my phone to the router network and go upstream of all the other stuff.

              • Natanael@slrpnk.net
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                3 months ago

                What you need to do is put devices which you want to access from multiple networks in a specific network / VLAN and then bridge it over

            • CameronDev@programming.dev
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              3 months ago

              I take my Chromecast on holiday, you basically have to factory reset it every time to change network. But my recollection is that you’ve always had to do that.

              • tjhart85@programming.dev
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                3 months ago

                My solution: get a travel router and have it broadcast the same SSID (and use the same password) as you use at home.

                All your devices should successfully connect to it and you don’t need to factory reset them.

                Many of them have the ability to navigate through a captive portal too (since I got mine all the hotels I’ve gone to have just needed a password, so i haven’t needed to test that).

                • CameronDev@programming.dev
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                  3 months ago

                  I have a travel router as well, I just prefer to keep the SSIDs different. It is definitely paranoia, but if someone sees your travel router at a hotel, they know your not home, and your home can be found on wigle.net.

                  Its not that bad to reset the Chromecast, and I do it infrequently, so I’m happy with that.

              • FrederikNJS@lemm.ee
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                3 months ago

                That makes perfect sense, and switching is definitely annoying then… But the person I responded to said they had multiple WiFi networks at home… E.g. Not on holiday

        • jpeps@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Yeah I got one of the newer ones after having a ton of the earlier models and I was disgusted by that change. Instantly returned it and bought one of the discontinued Ultras for 4K.

    • The Quuuuuill@slrpnk.net
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      3 months ago

      What’s funny is that was actually the start of them becoming who they are now. There’s a litany of evidence they stole the Chromecast technology

      • Natanael@slrpnk.net
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        3 months ago

        The remote playback control over network patents? I can’t see why those patents should be valid, everything there has prior art done in the 80’s

        What I’m more pissed about is how Google killed Miracast (it’s technically still around but Google removed it from default Android and OEMs have to choose to enable it) and how they fought against 3rd party implementations to keep the Chromecast protocol closed.

        I see there’s ongoing work for a Matter based standard for casting, I really hope that ends up getting broad support. We need something better than DLNA (and Miracast is technically DLNA over WiFi Direct). We need an open casting standard supporting Chromecast-like remote interactive content (the device is essentially a remote controlled web browser)

  • thezeesystem@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Me - Ok Google, give me a open source way to turn my raspberry pi into a 4k streaming box.

    Google - Got it. Playing Tyler Swift on living room tv

    Me - wtf?

    • Justin@lemmy.jlh.name
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      3 months ago

      KDE Plasma Big screen looks promising. Combine it with TV friendly apps like Jellyfin and plasma tube, and it should be pretty competitive and actually receive updates.

      • Jeena@piefed.jeena.net
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        3 months ago

        Thanks for mentioning KDE Plasma Big Screen it’s an interesting attempt. It’s written in Qt, like many of the TV UIs today anyway. I need to check it out.

        • Justin@lemmy.jlh.name
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          3 months ago

          Yeah, I’m thinking of trying it out once my fan less N100 box arrives from china. Should have much better AV1 performance and subtitle rendering performance than my Google TV.

          I had a “fun” experience the other month with my Google TV where it was refusing to connect to my Jellyfin server. Turns out Google hasn’t updated the HTTPS CAs in over 2 years, and it was no longer compatible with the latest Let’s Encrypt X2 certificates which was announced back in 2020. Android TV has some good apps, but it is a software, ads, and security nightmare.

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      HardKernel makesa a few ODROID models that come with available Android TV builds. Some have the same chipset as the AMLogic on the CCwGTV 4K and they aren’t terribly expensive. If I wanted an open source Chromecast replacement I’d go for that.

  • Crampon@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Switched to apple TV already. Googles lame ad infused cheap plastic remote did the trick on me. They have to pay ME if they want a Youtube and Netflix ad laying on my table at home.