Gadgetory

so you're one of the lucky who got their hands on a pretty sold-out chromecast hell you might be watching this video on you television right now so what do you say we try to get a little bit more out of it hey it's Josh magar from Android thority what's going on everybody and these are some tips and tricks for the chromecast but before I get into the tips and tricks I want to answer a couple questions that came up in the review basically the chromecast does not stream content straight from your phone or tablet so if you have some local content on your tablet or on your phone it's not going to be able to be casted over to your television the way it works actually is that when you hit that cast button on YouTube or Netflix or play music it relays the information to the chromecast so it can find the content from the source itself by using some html5 magic the chromecast connects to the actual service finds your video or music and then plays it after you install the chromecast app and then update all of your media apps this is all available if you do really want to stream content from a local source that is somewhat possible using a laptop or computer like I said in the review you are able to use the chromecast to broadcast a tab from a Chrome browser now what's really awesome is that tabs in Chrome browsers can actually display a ton of stuff websites Flash content and pictures but let's say you have some local videos you want to watch if your Chrome browser has the appropriate plug-in to view the content then that tab will play it and then you can just send that tab to the chromecast just browse your computer hard drive from within Chrome to your video and it will display through the browser tab then hit chromecast it's pretty awesome right this allows with the chromecast to bridge the gap between your computer and your television think outside the box and you'll realize the possibilities I even have a plex media server that my friend set up and all the content from there streams to my computer which then streams to my living room TV at least for me this is definitely the easiest way I've ever gotten Internet and local content to my television but it doesn't have to stop there hidden away in a small arrow on the side of the chromecast extension is an option to cast not only a tab but the entire computer screen now this is a very beta feature and while it is nice to have for perhaps quick presentations or picture viewing it may not be a particularly smooth stream but I'm sure that this feature will be continuously enhanced and just get better and better now you may notice the first time you try this Chrome browser streaming that it isn't completely smooth well there are ways of optimizing it since your computer is basically in this case transcoding on the fly it also has to stream the end product to your chromecast this is one a very fast internet connection is important and recommended in the browser extension hit the options button and you'll see the main way of helping this the transcoded footage can be set to a high bitrate 720p regular 720p which is the default setting or a much easier 480p now for my decent internet connection 480p works beautifully sure it isn't high definition but it's better than choppy video so those are just some ways of getting more out of your chromecast especially if you're using the computer but let's get back to the hardware itself if you haven't have a TV that has HDMI version 1.4 then you may not need the USB charging cord or the wall plug because the TV may be able to route power to the chromecast itself unfortunately I don't have any TVs that are able to demonstrate this but on the other hand you might want to keep it plugged into the wall because there's an extra feature in the chromecast that might work for those of you who happen to have these TVs with these particular versions of HDMI see if you start a cast from your phone or tablet or from your computer and your TV is off it can send the information to the chromecast and recognize that the TV is off and then turn it on and switch to the proper source unfortunately again I don't have any TVs I can't demonstrate this and finally this tip is for anybody who ran into the same problem that I had in the review like I said before my DLP TV does include a HDMI input but it is rather old and the 5.1 system that came with it requires audio to come straight from the source if you haven't noticed the chromecast has only the HDMI output some people commented that I could get a navy receiver but those things can cost over $200 since I only needed a way to split the chromecast signal I decided to find something for that specific purpose I did and it is this box that actively splits the video and audio signal into HDMI and spdif perfect for my setup now I can go from this to this like I said before though this adds more total cost to your chromecast experience so be aware of your setup at home before you pull the trigger but to me this was worth having my big-screen available for all my viewing pleasure and so there you have it just a few tips and tricks for you to get even more out of your chromecast I think the best feature is still the Chrome browser tab broadcasting because you could do so much in a Chrome browser and then all of a sudden is available on your TV I'm sure that a lot of these vendors and companies are soon going to be made available for the chromecast like HBO Go revision3 songify we already have reports of them testing to become available on the chromecast so it's only going to be a matter of time before a service that you want to have on there is probably going to make it on there and that's what's great about the chromecast it has a very open architecture so that when the SDK is released a lot of people are probably going to jump right on it so broadcasting a chrome tab from your computer will likely be just the workaround you have for now and pretty soon whole lot of possibilities are going to open up as always for the best coverage make sure you stay tuned - to Android authorities channel drop us a like down below don't forget to subscribe and once you're done with all of that head on over to Android authority comm or your source for all things Android