hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr1396.txt

Episode: 1396
Title: HPR1396: First Thoughts of the Google Chromecast
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1396/hpr1396.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 00:45:53

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Hi everyone, this is Steve Promp and North Carolina for Hacker Public Radio.
I'd like to thank everyone at HBR for the great service that they offer and allowing the
community the freedom to report on tips, tricks, news, apps, and everything a hacker would
find interesting.
Today, I'd like to talk about my purchase of the Google Chromecast.
I had not heard of this device actually coming out and so when I saw the commercial on
TV, I was surprised about it.
So I looked into it and it was very cheap.
It was actually $35 US and it was available at a local retailer.
So looking at it, what I needed was a way to stream Netflix to the TV upstairs, currently
downstairs in our main living area.
We have a TV that has a blue ray hooked up to it that does nothing but stream Netflix.
It has played maybe one or two blue rays and that's it.
Purchasing another blue ray player or something like a PlayStation 4, I'm not even a gamer
so it would kind of be out of the question to do anything like that would be not financially
sound, just not a good idea.
So I looked into this device and it streamed Netflix and that's what I needed it for.
The Chromecast device itself looks like a maybe about an inch and a half long USB stick.
It's not really USB stick and say it has an HDMI port on one side and on the other side
it has a mini USB.
How it connects to the TV is through an HDMI input.
So the TV that you have to have must be an HD TV that has an HDMI input.
Along with the Chromecast device itself, there's also a USB cable so it goes from mini USB
to a standard USB plug and this is to give power to the Chromecast device itself.
The box also comes with a power adapter from USB to a standard USB plug.
So if you don't have a USB port on your TV you are still able to get power to the Chromecast
device to give power.
So what I can actually do is the TV that I have is a Samsung TV that has two HDMI inputs
and one USB port.
So I was actually able to plug up the Chromecast device into the HDMI input on one side of
the TV and the cable would route into the USB port on the TV for power.
So after I plugged everything up, the first thing I did was install the Chromecast device
or Chromecast app on my phone and installed Netflix app on the phone and logged into the
Netflix app with my account and made sure that everything was worked.
Everything was good.
So after I inserted the Chromecast device into the HDMI input on my TV and the Chromecast
from the Chromecast USB to the USB port on my TV, I switched the input on the TV to an
HDMI connection through the remote.
And on the screen it came up with the Chromecast like ScreenSaver and it said to go to google
chrome.com slash Chromecast slash setup to finish the process.
So I did this on my phone and when I went to the website it basically just told me to
install the Chromecast app which I had already done.
So I fired up the Chromecast app and the app searched out and tried to find a Chromecast
device that was close and it found mine since it was plugged into the TV.
And after I selected the device that I wanted to set up, the app started to walk me through
the setup process.
Versus the app connected to the Chromecast device plugged into my TV and after it made a connection
it came up on my phone and said do you see this code on your TV?
And the code was like Z2, T4 or something like that which it was displayed on my TV as
well so I continued and then it would give me the option to change the name of the Chromecast
device and it came up with a seemingly arbitrary name like Chromecast 0812 or something like
that.
So I changed the name to match the rest of the stuff on my network and then it walked me
through to setting it up the Chromecast device itself that was plugged into my TV setting
it up to connect to my wireless.
It went out and searched for my wireless connection, my wireless router and it found it like
SSID and it wanted me to enter my WPA2 key and after I gave it the information I waited
for about maybe a minute or so maybe less and it connected to my wireless network.
As soon as it connected to my wireless network it started downloading the latest firmware
and apparently there's already a method for rooting the Chromecast device and this automatic
update fixes that.
I wasn't interested in rooting the device I just wanted to stream Netflix so when I had
let it process the update and after the update it took about maybe four or five minutes to
finish the update of the firmware and the device rebooted and on the TV screen it came back
up to the Chromecast screen saver like and so it was ready for me to connect my apps
for streaming.
So I fired at the Netflix app on my phone and now in the upper right hand corner of
the Netflix app there is a standard media route button it looks like a square and then on
the bottom left hand corner there are three lines it kind of looks like a RSS icon.
So when you touch that on the Netflix app that media route button it asked if I wanted
to stream from onto my phone it said this device which was by phone or onto the Chromecast
device and it showed the name that I had given the Chromecast device earlier.
So I chose the Chromecast device that was plugged into the TV and on the TV screen I was
given the album art or cover art or whatever you want to say for the TV show I chose and
it started to buffer.
And it took about maybe a second or so and then this show started streaming and it was
actually really good quality.
I think it came up and it said that it was 1080p if I'm not mistaken so it looked fantastic.
On the phone however I just saw the cover art of the TV show and the standard play pause
button and a progress bar that you can move back and forth throughout the show to the
kind of fast border rewind the TV show or movie or whatever you were streaming.
And it was great it worked really well and so I started playing around with it and currently
right now the Google Chromecast only supports Netflix, YouTube, Hulu Plus, HBO, Go, Pandora,
Google Play movies and TV as well as Google Play Music.
I did check out the of course the Netflix and the YouTube, the Pandora and the Google Play
Music.
I could stream music or podcasts or whatever from my TV for whatever reason.
Don't have a Hulu Plus account or an HBO Go account so get and test those to see how
they worked out.
The one thing that was kind of weird is when the TV goes off obviously it loses its connection.
So when I fired the TV back up I had the app already running and there was a little
bit of a weirdness there it couldn't connect and then it said and it found it and then
it disconnected and but after a second or so everything kind of stabilized and started
working as normal and could stream the Netflix and the Pandora just as I did before.
So my initial thought of the device is actually it's really good.
I mean what I needed it for was to stream Netflix onto a TV upstairs without a huge
cost.
$30,000 is not going to break the bank so it was kind of a no-brainer and I know that
a lot of people kind of like trying to get away from the Google empire or whatever but
my phone is Android.
I love the Android operating system.
The apps work just like I need them to and on my Samsung Galaxy phone the connecting
that with my Chromecast was fairly seamless.
It took maybe about maybe 15-20 minutes at the most to go from beginning to end until
I was actually streaming stuff and that's what I needed to do.
Maybe a low cost way of streaming Netflix to my TV upstairs and it did the job.
So if you are in the market to do something similar then I would say give it a shot.
Hopefully in the future it will give you the option to play movies or recorded stuff
from your phone that you maybe used your camera phone or your video recorder on your phone
to record something and then stream that onto the TV as well.
Maybe that's in the future not really sure but hopefully down the line that will be something
that they offer.
So I appreciate everybody listening that's all I got for this evening and if you have not
recorded anything for HPR I would highly recommend it.
It's a great way to get your feet wet and get some information out there to the community.
Thanks a lot and have a great day.
Bye.
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