The nightly build of Firefox for Android has received support for Chromecast, to allow users to cast a video to a screen with Chromecast.
Since it is a nightly build, users of the official release build in Google Play can’t access the feature, but with it being baked into test builds, it is undoubtedly coming soon to all users.
Much like on Chrome, when you begin playback of a video, a Cast button will appear in the bottom corner of the video. From there, you simply select which Chromecast you want to send the video to, and boom, it’s casting.
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Nightly Firefox Android Gets Chromecast Support
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(Score: 4, Funny) by dyingtolive on Wednesday August 20 2014, @06:07PM
What happens to the feature during the day?
Ha cha cha cha!
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 21 2014, @10:16AM
A Firefox-branded humanoid robot that only works at night did a successful support call about issues related to Chromecast?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Wednesday August 20 2014, @06:30PM
Has the API been opened up by the hacker community or the vendor? so far only the SDK is able to communicate with it asfaik.
(Score: 4, Informative) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Wednesday August 20 2014, @06:35PM
I'm working on implementing Chromecast, and it's hard. Chromecast support in your favorite app is lagging because implementation is a bear. Google's APIs are convoluted and difficult to grok, and their sample programs are way too overengineered to be of much use as tutorials. (Google also doesn't share everything, since one sample app completely lacked an implementation of an Android workaround they use to get their YouTube app to work.) I'd rank Chromecast among the hardest things I've ever implemented just from the sheer amount I had to absorb to even get started and the amount of code I had to write just to send a stream URL across the room to a dongle.
Please have pity on anyone trying to implement Chromecast in an app. I'm sure they're trying to get it finished.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @06:39PM
Do you know of an open-source implementation of the Windows "play-on" function?
I get the impression it is a combo DLNA controller/server thing.
I'm looking for something I can run on my linux desktop and just drag-and-drop media files into and have them play on my TV on the other side of the room.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 20 2014, @06:48PM
Seems like it's easier to make your own Chromecast device.
Is the API at IP level opened up in someway? or do you have to deal with the SDK all the time?
Like if your were on a deserted island with just Chromecast and a unix box with Wifi what would it take to make it work without any SDK etc..?
(Score: 3, Informative) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Wednesday August 20 2014, @07:56PM
The unfortunate part about Chromecast is you have to use Google's API, which requires Google Play services. You're essentially sending a URL for a stream to a dongle across the room by routing it through Google's servers. You have to have a key registered with Google to make it work at all.
What would it take to make it work without Google's APIs? That's an interesting question. The dongle essentially seems to be running the Chrome browser, since you can connect a Chrome browser to it via a remote debug session. (In theory, but I've never gotten this to work.) The dongle seems to be displaying on the TV the output of an HTML5 application that Google calls the "receiver". (Your device is the "sender".) Google provides a default receiver, or you can write your own.
I'd have to look at the talking back and forth in Wireshark, but without Google, you'd probably have to fake out the Chromecast IP address it's trying to connect to. Even then, the sender wouldn't work because you couldn't connect and use the casting APIs. They probably have a similar mechanism to prevent the dongle from working if it's pointed to, say, an Apache server running an HTML5 application.
Definitely not open source or free in any way.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 20 2014, @08:05PM
Perhaps one can write a new firmware for it? With RAM 512 MB, MCU Marvell DE3005-A1, storage of 2 GB. It's a full blown computer. Which most likely brings up the issue of hardware documentation and signed boot code.
Another approach is to modify the existing software.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Wednesday August 20 2014, @08:42PM
Check this out:
http://blog.gtvhacker.com/2013/chromecast-exploiting-the-newest-device-by-google/ [gtvhacker.com]
They got a root shell on it, so it must be running some kind of Linux.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Wednesday August 20 2014, @09:20PM
Seems ChromeCast is being taken over by the community ;)
Perhaps it's easier to just grab a Raspberry-Pi and use it to display video-over-network? It got HDMI, hardware H.264/MPEG-4 AVC decoder and Ethernet connection. Perhaps I'm missing something?
Just seems unnecessary to hack ChromeCast or anything else when there's a better solution.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Thursday August 21 2014, @12:20AM
Question: Are they doing this on purpose, to make it harder for anybody but themselves to have this, or do they just really suck at writing APIs? Because back when MSFT was the big cheese they were accused of doing this with their APIs and now that Google is the big cheese its beginning to look like Google is copying the MSFT playbook [arstechnica.com] so I have to wonder if this isn't another case of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss".
Ya know, looking at the history of computing and all the douchebaggery over the years I'm starting to feel the largest tech company being a douchebag? Kinda inevitable. its like once a corp gets to a certain size they begin getting paranoid and caring more about holding their position than just doing what they are best at and THAT moment is when the douchebaggery sets in. From IBM to Intel, MSFT to Google, its like you reach a certain size and then BAM! Here comes the underhanded shit and nasty plays.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @07:48PM
I have no idea what Chromecast is, but I wish I could find an unbranded build of Firefox that didn't include it!
Kind of half-and-half serious about here, but Firefox on my phone feels just like Firefox on a PC. I can't find any Pale Moon style alternatives on the phone, though. ;(
(Score: 2) by TK on Wednesday August 20 2014, @08:52PM
For me, every mobile web browser on a phone feels about the same. Any difference in rendering speed is made moot by the limits in network speed, tabs are always accessed the same way, flash runs as a separate process...
The only difference is that FF lets you install extensions, so I can watch youtube without adds and avoid being redirected to the mobile version of a site.
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Thursday August 21 2014, @05:08PM
Pale Moon has a beta build [palemoon.org] for Android, actually (working great for me!). I discovered this because I am sick of Firefox telling me it has "helpfully" disabled Flash on my device because their testing suggests the performance is not good. There is no workaround, nor any about:config setting I can override as far as I can tell. The choice has been taken from me, and I don't remotely appreciate that. Security vulnerabilities I can understand. This is something else.
I'm done with Firefox, on any platform. Sad, as it was my favorite back in the v3.6 days.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday August 20 2014, @07:50PM
Here is why I think Chrome Cast is dumb. A phone is a small computer with a built in screen. What is so bloody hard about mirroring the screen to an HDMI port or a Chrome Cast like WiFi device? We have had this functionality for years on PC's. How counter intuitive is it from a developer standpoint to actually have to integrate display support into an app. That is like me having to add multi monitor support in my application for a friggen desktop. Oh the screen rotates so it might not work right on a TV? Then the app is displayed sideways, or the image is scaled and rotated to fit the screen. If the app can not rotate to landscape it is the fault of the app for not being big-screen friendly. The first time this little "feature" pissed me off was my old HTC Evo 4G. It had a micro HDMI port and I bought a cable thinking I would see a mirrored screen on my TV. Nope. Only the phones picture and video gallery worked. Youtube didnt work and neither did any other app I used at the time. Pointless.
Can someone please clue me in to why Google has chosen such as ass backwards method of displaying data on a TV?
(Score: 3, Informative) by TK on Wednesday August 20 2014, @08:32PM
Because they want to control how you view media. If your phone could use your TV as a "dumb screen", people might exploit that to do all sorts of cool things, independent of Google's oversight. See the comment by PizzaRollPlinkett [soylentnews.org].
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @08:46PM
What is so bloody hard about mirroring the screen to an HDMI port or a Chrome Cast like WiFi device? We have had this functionality for years on PC's.
It is called Miracast. [wikipedia.org] Coincdentally, Western Digital released a firmware upgrade for their WDTV media player that enables miracast support. [youtube.com]
Can someone please clue me in to why Google has chosen such as ass backwards method of displaying data on a TV?
There is value in handing a URL to the display and letting the display take care of streaming it rather than double-hopping through your phone. That doesn't mean chromecast is the best way to do it, just that there a place for something other than screen mirroring.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 21 2014, @12:37AM
Recently Google enabled screen mirroring from some devices to the Chromecast. But it really doesn't work that well (I tried it with my Nexus 5), it's okay for web browsing, but not for any games where you have to react quickly to what's on screen. Now, does it really make sense to stream a video to your phone, decode and display it on the phone, then re-encode what's displayed and send it over wifi to a display dongle when you can just tell the dongle to stream the video directly.
Chromecast isn't dumb, but its use is rather limited.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday August 21 2014, @01:04PM
You reckon? I'm still using one of them [wikipedia.org], for reasons that become obvious when you read the offer.
Tell yea, never got anyone tracking me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford