Kgmm77

Whilst Apple TV is an overpriced, underdeveloped PoS at least I was able to buy one.

For a "global" company Google's international product rollout is pathetic.

PTravel

It doesn't need charging. It gets its power from a USB port. You can either use one on the TV, use USB hub, a USB port on the laptop, or a wallwart.

SRQ Guy

Ahh, that makes sense. I was going off some initial reviews which claimed that it needed to be charged.

ne52

True... but easier for G to claim everything is still in beta when you're not building up to a hard launch.

If they're going to start competing head to head with apple on more fronts, they really do need to work on promotion and launch.

richarddd

Rumor has it Netflix gave them a fixed number of discounts. Those got used up rather quickly. Even without the discount, it's still a good price.

But you're right, Google is incompetent at retail.

ScottC

Oh come on - you think Apple never had a launch where the product wasn't available? It took me three weeks to get my iPhone 4, and even then, the local Apple store had three hour waits.

I ordered two Chromecasts - one from Google and one from Amazon. They were in stock until late last night. You snooze, you lose. They'll be back in stock sooner or later. I think Google did a great job this time by expanding the stock beyond just the play store (to prevent another Nexus debacle), plus they will be in retail soon.

ScottC

Working amazingly on my Chromebook Pixel. It mirrors the screen of the tab I'm in, then when I start video, it sends just the video fullscreen to my TV. This thing is a gamechanger.

PTravel

Someone on Amazon posted a FAQ. This is one of his entries:

Q: Is content truly limited to the few services currently supported through apps such as Netflix, Youtube and soon Pandora?
A: Not exactly. You can also stream whatever content you have stored locally and (in Beta now) just about anything you can get playing on your Chrome.

SlingBox can, of course, play via a web browser, including Chrome. The question is what kind of control you have over the Chromecast. If it supports even minimal mouse movements and data entry from an app or a computer, it can be used to watch a Slingbox.

Also, according to the FAQ, it can stream content from the local HDD. I'm really curious how this works. I use Total Media Theater to watch Blu-Rays and and DVDs that I rip to my laptop's SSD with AnyDVD (which can rip anything). If there's a way to get the Chromecast to work with TMT, that would be great! Right now, I carry an HDMI cable for this purpose, but it means keeping my laptop near the HDTV, whereas I like to watch lying in bed. This would let me control the Chromecast from the bed without having to get up. Nice!

Now I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on this thing. Per Amazon, it still hasn't shipped yet.

nerd

Me too.

How do you stream a movie that's on your local storage?

unmesh

Supposedly you drag-and-drop it into Chrome and then maximize and cast the tab. Not having the device yet, I've only been able to confirm that the first two steps work for content on my NAS accessed through SMB.

nerd

When I drop a movie onto my Chrome browser, the browser won't play it back - it just bounces it back to the file folder.

cblaisd

Wonder if Pogoplug will work....

unmesh

Turns out the file I had picked was an MP4 which played fine. After your post, I tried AVI and MKV with no luck and will need to look into chrome extensions.

stimpy

I'll be in the US in a few weeks or so. Hopefully Best Buy will have them in stores by then.

I wonder what the margin is? 1000%? I reckon they cost less than $3 to make, eh? Nice business if you can sell a billion.

sparkchaser

Supposedly if you can get it to play inside your Chrome browser then you can then broadcast (Chromecast?) it to your TV.