Gadgetory

Google's $35 chromecast gives us a new affordable way to stream media from any of our mobile devices to any HDTV I'm Donnell Bell and then this how-to I'm going to show you how to set this up and make it work with a number of different devices including an Android tablet iPhone or laptop now as simple as this thing looks setup does take a few minutes to complete you plug it into an open HDMI port connect the power cord to either a USB port on your TV or the included power adapter then select the HDMI input you're using and you should see a setup screen now unlike an Apple TV or a Roku there's no remote control for the chromecast and no Ethernet port so you have to connect this thing to a Wi-Fi network and to do that it's gonna need some help from another device now whether you have a laptop or a phone or a tablet make sure it's connected to the same Wi-Fi network you plan to use for the chromecast and direct the browser to google.com slash chromecast slash setup preferably using Google's own Chrome browser on this Mac I was directed to download the chromecast app I'll open it up and it searches for any nearby chromecast I'll make sure that the names matched before I hit continue since hijacking my neighbor's chromecast probably won't make them too happy once the computer and the chromecast are connected to each other you'll see a unique four-digit code on the screen since it matches the one on my computer I'll click that's my code next I'll choose the Wi-Fi network I wanted to use from the drop-down list and enter the password you also have the option to give your chromecast a name if you're prone to naming your tech now on the TV here we can see that the chromecast is trying to connect to the network and there it goes we're all ready to cast now once that set the application on my laptop here points me back over to the Chrome browser and installs a chromecast plug-in which gives me this little button over here in the corner when I press it you can send your page over to the chromecast while still controlling it locally on your computer on youtube you'll see a specific chromecast button down on the corner of the video player which displays the video fullscreen on the TV on Android you'll see these same chromecast buttons and media apps like Netflix YouTube and Google Play just make sure you're on that same Wi-Fi network as your chromecast or you're not going to get very far you also notice that when you're throwing content over to chromecast that your device turns into a kind of remote control which you can use to play pause or adjust the volume the same goes for iPads and iPhones so long as you're on the same network you should see the chromecast option here for Netflix and YouTube and support for Pandora is also expected soon one last thing I want to touch on our settings back here on my laptop with the Chrome browser open you'll see a settings option here when you click the chromecast button here you can throttle or raise the video quality resize your browser page to fit the TV screen and even change the zoom setting for video playback there's nothing here I recommend in particular but it's good to know where these settings are so that's how to set up and use a chromecast you're on the fence about getting one check out our full review over on CNET and for more how-to videos how-to cnet.com i'm donald bell thanks for watching you