chromecast News - Page 3 of 3 - CNX Software

August 20, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

CheapCast ChromeCast Emulator For Android Source Code Released

CheapCast is an Android app that lets you emulate ChromeCast hardware on any Android 4.x devices such as smartphone, tablet, and mini PCs. I’ve tried CheapCast last week unsuccessfully on several hardware, but a recent update fixed that and I could use Tronsmart T428 to stream videos from YouTube with the Cast button just like you would do with a real ChromeCast. There’s more work to be done however, and the only application that currently work are YouTube and Google Music, which is nice, but more work is needed to bring CheapCast functionalities closer to what’s possible with ChromeCast. That’s why Sebastian Mauer, CheapCast developer, has decided to release the source code under Apache License Version 2.0. You can get the source code from Cheapcast repo on github:

git clone https://github.com/mauimauer/cheapcast.git

1	git clone https://github.com/mauimauer/cheapcast.git

Finally import it into Android Studio or Eclipse, and start hacking and contribute back to the project. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started […]

August 12, 2013August 16, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

CheapCast Chromecast Emulator for Android (Beta) is Available for Download

Yesterday, I wrote developers were working on making any media App and any Android device compatible with Chromecast. Sebastian Mauer has taken care of the latter, by publishing CheapCast (Beta) in Google Play. Several people have been trying it successfully, including in iMito MX1 mini PC. I’ve been less lucky. I’ve tried it by running YouTube App in Zopo ZP900S smartphone (Android 4.0.4) with 4 devices: Tronsmart T428 – “Works” but the video won’t start playing. (Bug reported in Github’s issue tracker) [Update: It now works with the latest version in Google Play]. MK908 – Refused to install anything in Google Play today… (Older Android 4.1 firmware) Wandboard Quad – “Works” but the video won’t start playing. CX-01 – CheapCast will crash when playing video I can’t really play YouTube videos over 360p without buffering here, so the reason the video won’t start in T428 or Wandboard Quad might be […]

August 10, 2013August 10, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Developers Are Working on Chromecast Functionality From Any Android Apps via Any Android Devices

If you don’t just come back from (too long) holidays, you should know Google has released the Chromecast, a $35 HDMI TV Stick that uses a protocol called DIAL to let users stream online videos on the TV via your mobile device or mirror your Chrome browser on the TV. However, there are currently quite a few limitations. It can only be used with apps specifically designed for Chromecast (e.g. YouTube, Netflix,…), and Chromecast is the only available receiver, and can only be purchased in the US. Luckily these may not be an issue soon… Koushik Dutta (Kouch) has taken care of the first issue by modifying Cyanogenmod to allow any video or audio app to stream the media files via the TV, using Android notifications. Perfect. Moving to the second issue. If you don’t live in the US, you’re still stuck, and if you do live in the US, […]

August 2, 2013December 24, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

$49 OVO Egg-Shaped Media Player Helps You Collect and Organize Online Videos With your Smartphone

If you’re often watching online videos on your smartphone, and when back home, you’d rather continue watching those on your television, OVO may be for you. The device is a tiny media player shaped like an egg, with a multimedia processor, a minimum amount of RAM and flash, and Wi-Fi. The full specifications haven’t been provided, but here’s what we know about the hardware: SoC- Full HD Media Processor System Memory – 2Gbit DDR3 (256 MB) Storage – 2GBit NAND Flash (256 MB) Connectivity – 2×2 WiFi 802.11b/g/n single-band Video Output – HDMI 1.4 Dimensions – 61.85 mm (h), 63.32 mm (w), 72.78 mm (d) Weight – 77 grams There’s no word about the OS, but it’s probably running some sort of Embedded Linux distribution. Another interesting point about the hardware is that the Wi-Fi module is not placed horizontally, but inclined, and according to the company this improves Wi-Fi […]

July 27, 2013July 27, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Chromecast Open Source Code: Linux Kernel, Toolchain, Bootloader, and More

Google has made quite a stir by introducing Chromecast, and entering the HDMI TV Stick market. We already know the device is based on Marvell 88DE3005 SoC with 512 MB, and since the product are already been shipped to customers in the US, it was just a question of time before the release of the open source code, and everything you need appears to be available at https://code.google.com/p/chromecast-mirrored-source/ Let’s have a look at what we have in the different repositories: Wiki – Empty… Kernel – Linux 3.0.8 source code Prebuilt – Binary toolchain: arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi-4.5.3-glibc Toolchain – Source code for the toolchain above. External – Source code for alsa-libs, dnsmask, libexit and nss sdk – bootloader and DirecFB 1.6.1 vendor – Looks like qt source used in some netflix app (not sure) Chromium – README explaining how you can download Chromecast Chromium source code: 1.8GB tarball + you need to contact […]

July 25, 2013July 26, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

Google Unveils $35 Chromecast HDMI TV Stick

For over a year now, we’ve seen many Android HDMI TV Sticks (which I often call mini PCs), a few Linux ones, but Google has just announced its own stick based on a strip down version of Chrome OS. It’s not as versatile as others as it only streams video and music, but it make sharing media easy, and is controlled via your Android or iOS mobile device, or your Windows PC or Mac via Chrome web browser. The connection is just the same as other HDMI dongles. Connect it to the HDMI port of your TV, power it via USB, and setup Wi-Fi. When I first saw the demonstration, I was disappointed as it just seemed like you could do the same thing with a DLNA dongle, but it’s actually quite different. First, Chromekey only works with online services such as YouTube, Netflix, Google Play Movie & TV and […]