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Comment by kelnos | Hacker News Reader

I'm still really disappointed that the Cast protocol is effectively closed, and Google only supports casting from Chrome, Android, and iOS.

I think Google is really shooting themselves in the foot regarding adoption. I'd love to have a command-line Cast client for Linux, integration into pulseaudio, a Firefox Cast extension, a native UI (non-browser) video player, etc. Sure, some people have reverse-engineered the newer protocol, but I've never gotten any of the unofficial clients to work reliably (and some just flat-out don't work at all).

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Google's not shooting themselves in the foot because:

- Google Cast is not a general-purpose streaming protocol, even though it is designed to mimic that UX to a casual user

- Cast provides some features like 'ad breaks' [1] that are valuable to content providers and aggregators which you wouldn't find in a general-purpose streaming protocol, making it more likely that those who want these features will make their streaming app Cast-compatible

- The Cast SDK comes with a TOS [2] that's a rather enlightening read

- You have to register your application with Google if you're developing a Cast sender [3], or if you're developing a Cast receiver and don't want to use their Default Receiver [4] (presumably, because you're building your own).

Google's building an ecosystem here. This isn't Miracast or WiDi or even AirPlay, although kudos to them for making everyone think so.

[1] https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/ads

[2] https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/terms

[3] https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/chrome_sender#setup

[4] https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/receiver_apps#choose...

Isn't AirPlay pretty much analogous? Only available on a single brand of devices with an effectively DRM protected closed protocol?

I don't quite think so. AirPlay is a proprietary Miracast, long before Miracast existed. Although it's proprietary and the payload is protected with DRM, Apple uses it as an encrypted tunnel between approved (and first-party) devices.

Meanwhile, Google Cast is a media-streaming negotiation, handoff and control protocol marketed as a wireless streaming solution. It's not so much about packets on the wire as control commands and metadata. That, I feel, is a significant difference.

You can cast your desktop using Chrome cast. I'm pretty sure that's more than negotiation, handoff and control.

I don't think that's actually part of the Cast protocol. Google just built a desktop streaming app on top of the Cast protocol, and bundled it with the client.

Chromecast is available on iOS and the web, not just Android, ie any third-party iOS developer - not just Google - can support Chromecast.

So platform support is more widespread, though your main point is valid insofar as Google determines which platforms it works on.

but still so many of applications that their version on android supports it, do not support it in their ios version e.g. soundcloud.

That doesn't disprove that they are, in fact, NOT shooting themselves in the foot

Oof!

> you must take appropriate steps to ensure that your application cannot be invoked to launch content for which you are not responsible

I read that as prohibiting an app that lets a user cast their own content or third-party content.

And that's interesting, because, looking at my phone, the only things that violate that are Google's own apps (Photos, the OS itself with its Cast Screen functionality), which obviously aren't bound by the SDK agreement.

Here's a command line client I wrote:

https://github.com/skorokithakis/catt

Cool! I'm mainly looking for something that can cast local content, but I'm sure I can find a use for your work as well.

I'm thinking of embedding a web server in it so it can serve local content, it wouldn't be that hard.

There are alternative clients, it's the receiver side that is locked down.

For example: https://github.com/xat/castnow

Never got it to work with anything, video, audio, images. The ChromeCast screen changes as if it's loading something, but it just sits there forever and nothing plays.

firewall maybe?

I agree, I'd love an Adobe Lightroom plugin that extends a second screen image preview through Google Cast

My TVs are typically much larger and at a different aspect ratio than my monitor

But unfortunately, there's no SDK or API to even begin considering this sort of thing

No desktop apps are able to get it

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