For the first edition of #HotAppTuesday, I'll start with PlayTo for Chromecast. Now, let's just say that you've taken my earlier advice and purchased one (and at Rs.2,999 you should really consider doing so). You've probably played around with YouTube and some other Chromecast enabled apps and are wondering "Is that it? Is that all it can do?" Well, No!
YouTube and traditional cast enabled apps are perhaps just the tip of the Chromecast's casting capabilities (the word "cast" will appear a lot in this post). The real trick is in getting the device to work with "non-traditional" streaming sites like SolarMovie and PutLocker without having to cast the entire browser tab from Chrome (an easy but ultimately low quality solution) and that's where PlayTo comes in (guess this will have to do till VLC brings it's long-promised Chromecast support - hopefully soon as per this article).
Disclaimer: Speed and quality while streaming is highly dependent on your broadband connection. For a buffer free experience, I recommend a connection of at least 4Mbps.
PlayTo for Chromecast (Desktop, Free)
This simple extension for the Chrome desktop browser does one thing and does it well. Once it picks up embedded videos (playing on your Chrome browser), a simple dialog box opens asking if you want to play the video using the Chromecast. Click Yes and the extension connects to your Chromecast (using the standard Google Cast Chrome extension) and redirects it to the source of the video . And that's it. Your TV should refresh and start playing near HD quality video (depending on the quality of the source file, of course). Now, as with most Chromecast apps, this is pretty hit-and-miss, although in my extensive "testing", I had a success rate of more than 90% casting the video I wanted.
Here's a totally engrossing video demoing the whole process:
Pros:
- Straightforward to install and use
- Mostly reliable and quick to connect and start playing the video
- Highly reliant on network speed. If you do have a good broadband connection, either try another video source or try restarting your WiFi router.
- Playback controls are sometimes pretty useless, except for the pause button
So overall, PlayTo is a great Chrome extension that extends the Google Cast extension and makes it much, much more useful. A definite must-have app for any Chromecast user.
Let me know if you found PlayTo useful as well and if you have any other great app that you would like to have featured on #HotAppTuesday.
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