Tag / stream

by Kush Sharma

Google Chromecast review

chromecast

This is an interesting little device that should be high on your gadget gifts list as it effectively connects your smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop PC to an HDMI enabled HDTV – without connecting wires, too. The Chromecast seamlessly lets you beam content from your handheld smart device onto your big-screen TV – watch YouTube videos, Netflix, Google Music, Google TV and Movies. When you’re doing this, your phone or tablet becomes the TV remote. Its beta screen mirroring feature – which lets you beam your Chrome browser session to a large screen – is still restrictive, but it’s only a matter of time before Google keeps adding more apps to the Chromecast party.

Design

The whole thing is a little under 3 inches long, and it’ll stick out about 2.5 inches when plugged into an HDMI port. There’s a short HDMI extension cable in the box to provide extra clearance if you can’t fit the Chromecast against the back of your TV, but you might need something longer depending on your setup, as the extension really just makes everything stick out more.

Chromecast is so small it could easily be mistaken for an oversized USB thumb drive with a little more heft to it. That contrasts with Apple TV and the “buddy boxes” that run Google TV. These devices that are filled with more audio and video ports than users know what to do with: component, S/PDIF, Ethernet, multiple HDMI connections, you name it.

Chromecast doesn’t have an HDMI port, it just fits right into one.

Setup

The setup can be remarkably easy if you follow Google’s directions and download the setup app on your computer or mobile device. On the back there’s an LED, a button, and a Micro USB port, which is how the Chromecast gets power. Yes, power — Google actually recommends that you use the included external power adapter to plug the Chromecast into the wall. Once you’ve got the Chromecast plugged in and powered, the next step is getting it on your Wi-Fi network.

The Chromecast is basically a small Android computer that can connect to the internet and play video files. When you hit the Cast button in a supported app, the Chromecast directly connects to the internet and streams the video itself — it’s not streaming from your device.

Since there’s no single, definitive place to control the Chromecast, it’s easy to find yourself watching a video without any immediate way to pause, rewind, or mute — you have to remember where the video came from and open that app. It’s not a big problem, but it’s added complexity. Google really needs to add basic playback controls like play, pause, and mute to the Chromecast setup app. Google also desperately needs to add in some basic password controls; right now anyone walking by can grab control of your Chromecast and send video to it. That makes it super easy to use, but also opens up a world of elaborate trolling.

You can set up multiple Chromecasts on the same Wi-Fi network, and the setup app even lets you rename them, so you can label each HDTV and room. By default they’re called “ChromecastXXXX” (with different four-digit numbers to identify them), but you can easily change them to “Living Room” and “Bedroom.”

Digging

There’s a “cast” button that is uniformly built into the top right of all of the compatible mobile apps: YouTube, Netflix, Google Play Music, and Google Play Movies & TV. The same goes for the Chrome browser extension on computers, but not Chrome on mobile devices, which have been left out of the media extending picture.

Pressing “cast” causes the Chromecast to start pulling an app’s video and audio to the TV on its own. This conveniently frees up your computer, phone, and tablet to fine-tune the streaming content’s timeline, audio settings, or make other selections within the app.

Chromecast can act as a second screen in a couple of cases, letting you browse the internet or do something else on the computer while a tab with your Gmail, Twitter feed or a video is running in a “casted” background on the big screen.

But don’t make a mistake thinking that this can be a dedicated second screen option for work; it’s just an extra screen to watch.

The Chromecast tab extension is also limited to Chrome at the moment and may never work outside of the Google-owned browser. That means FireFox, Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera users are out of luck if they had hoped to “cast” using their favorite browser. If Google opens up the Chromecast API, that could change in the future instead of forcing everyone to use Chrome for this one reason.

ready-to-cast

Downside

The Chromecast’s biggest limitation, of course, is content. Right now, the system only supports video from YouTube, Netflix, and Google Play Music & Movies on mobile. Having only rarely used Google Play’s VOD service and owning a variety of other devices with which to watch YouTube and Netflix, the novelty of the Chromecast’s app streaming functionality wore off quick. But Google promises more apps are on the way, and given the company’s clout, I’m inclined to believe them.

Though generally painless, there are scenarios when the Chromecast can be challenging to configure. For instance, if your TV is somewhat far or a few rooms away from your router, the Chromecast can struggle to maintain a connection.

Wrap-up

I can say that it has easily become my favorite way to watch Netflix and YouTube, which makes up a big part of my TV viewing these days. But Netflix and YouTube are clearly just the beginning for Chromecast. Hulu, Vimeo, HBO Go and others have already pledged their support, and a small army of independent developers has started to hack away and bring their own apps and games to the device. All of this means that Chromecast will get substantially better over the coming months.

Bad Stuff :

  • Not enough apps yet, Windows Phone not supported
  • Mirroring limited to browser tab
  • Weak Wi-Fi range
  • Chrome is the only supported browser

Good Stuff:

  • Streams Android to a big TV
  • Works with iOS, Macs and PCs
  • Easy to setup and transport
  • Cheapest media adapter
  • Supports multiple Chromecasts on the same network.
by Kush

How to Access Shared Folders of Windows 7 and Stream Videos on Android over wifi

Want to play videos from your computer on your Android, without the hassle of copying them to your device’s internal storage? Share a folder over the network with Windows. You can copy files back and forth over Wi-Fi, too.

 

Sharing Folders on Windows 7

To share a folder and make it accessible from Android, you’ll need to share it with “Everyone.”

To do this, navigate to the folder you want to share, click the Share with menu, and select Specific people.

windows android stream

Enter “Everyone” in the box and click the Add button. Select Everyone by clicking on it.

By default, Everyone will only have Read permissions – if you also want to copy files from your Android to the shared folder, you can change the permission level to Read/Write.

Click the Share button after configuring your permissions.

win-droid-share

Next, go to the Network and Sharing Center. Click Start, type “Network and Sharing” and press Enter to quickly open it.

win-droid-share

In the Advanced sharing settings, you may want to disable password-protected sharing. If you disable password-protected sharing, only folders you share with “Everyone” will be accessible without a password.

You can also try leaving password-protected sharing enabled, in which case you’ll need to enter user account credentials before connecting to your shared folder on Android. This may work, although I couldn’t get it to work, myself.

win-droid-share

 

Accessing Shared Folders on Android

To access the shared folder on Android, we’ll use ES File Explorer. It’s high-quality, free, and supports Windows shared folders with the SMB protocol.

From ES File Explorer’s main screen, swipe from the right to the left to access the LAN section. You can also tap the Local option at the top left corner of the screen and select LAN in the list.

Tap the New button on the toolbar in the LAN Shares section and select Scan to scan your network for PCs sharing files. You can also tap New and select Server to enter your computer’s IP address manually.

 

After the scan is complete, tap a computer to view its shared files. If ES File Explorer finds your computer but continues scanning for more computers, tap the screen to stop the scan process.

win-droid-share

Log in as Anonymous if you disabled password-protected sharing earlier. If you didn’t, try to log in with your Windows username and password – this never worked for me, however.

Browse to the folder you shared in your computer’s file system. I shared my D drive, so I’d tap D, tap my user account’s name.

While we can see other shares like C$ here, they aren’t accessible. We’d see an error message if we tried to access them anonymously.

Tap a video, music file, image, text file, or any other type of file to view it. You can also long-press a file to view a menu and optionally copy it to your device.

 

If you tap a file type Android supports – such as an MP4 video file – it will open immediately and start streaming to your device.

by Kush

Use VLC to stream video and audio

VLC includes a fairly easy-to-use streaming feature that can stream music and videos over a local network or the Internet. You can tune into the stream using VLC or other media players.

Use VLC’s web interface as a remote control to control the stream from elsewhere. Bear in mind that you may not have the bandwidth to stream high-definition videos over the Internet, though.

Broadcasting a Stream

To start broadcasting a network stream, click the Media menu in VLC and select Stream.

In the Open Media dialog, select the media you want to stream. You can select one or more files on the Files tab, select a CD or DVD on the Disc tab, or even capture video from a specific device on the Capture Device tab. For example, you could stream your desktop by selecting Desktop on the Capture Device tab.

Click the Stream button after selecting your media.

The Stream Output window will appear. The first pane just lists the media source you selected – click Next to continue.

vlc-stream

On the Destination Setup pane, you’ll need to choose a destination for your stream. For example, you can select HTTP to listen for connections – other computers can connect to your computer and watch the stream. You can also select UDP to broadcast to a specific IP address or range of IP addresses.

After selecting your destination, click the Add button. You may also want to activate the Display locally check box – if you do, you’ll see and hear the media being streamed on your local computer, so you’ll know it’s playing correctly.

After adding a destination, you’ll be able to customize its settings. With the HTTP destination, you could specify a custom path – but the default one will work fine.

vlc-stream-http

You can also tweak the transcoding settings – by transcoding to a lower quality, VLC can save network bandwidth.

Click Next to continue to the Option Setup pane – you probably don’t need to tweak any of the advanced options here. To start streaming, click the Stream button.

vlc

 

If you selected the Display locally option, the media will start playing locally on your computer.

If you have a firewall enabled, ensure that VLC is an allowed program or no computers will be able to connect. If you’re trying to stream over the Internet, you may also need to forward ports on your router.

 Connecting to a Stream

To tune in to a stream, click the Media menu in VLC on another computer and select Open Network Stream.

Assuming you used HTTP, enter an address like http://IP.Address:8080.

(If you specified a custom path for your HTTP stream in the Path box, you’ll need to specify the custom path here. For example, if you specified /path as your custom path, you’d enter http://IP.Address:8080/path in the box here.)

After clicking Play, the stream should start playing. To control playback remotely, try setting up VLC’s web interface. If you encounter an error, make sure VLC isn’t being blocked by a firewall on the streaming system.