Google opens up Chromecast

[samgreco]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-576...news&tag=title

Woo-Hoo?

[dgeezer]

Dang. I had given up on this ever happening and just sold mine on ebay.....
But, we never used it. We are strickly SageTV and Roku.

[Skybolt]

Cool, maybe I'll actually use it now ...

[Fuzzy]

I've used mine quite a bit, strictly for Netflix and Pandora on the living room TV.

[Skybolt]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I've used mine quite a bit, strictly for Netflix and Pandora on the living room TV.

Yeah, it's great for that. I have a Sonos and a Roku for those. I just expected, a lot more apps then it has at this point, it's just reinventing the wheel so far.

[trk2]

Any chance of using Chromecast as an extender? Maybe using placeshifter?

[nycjoe]

"Stay tuned"

[vividweb]

Originally Posted by trk2

Any chance of using Chromecast as an extender? Maybe using placeshifter?

Using plex you could.

[panteragstk]

Sean could build this into the Phoenix app if he wanted. Still no live tv or comskip though.

[Brent]

Would be really nice if movies and recorded shows from SageTV server could stream to Chromecast. My SageTV server is mostly being used for my ripped DVD collection at the moment along with some archived TV recordings.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Brent

Would be really nice if movies and recorded shows from SageTV server could stream to Chromecast. My SageTV server is mostly being used for my ripped DVD collection at the moment along with some archived TV recordings.

Should be able to acomplish this with the Plex integration today, if you pay for PlexPass (which really isn't that expensive).

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Should be able to acomplish this with the Plex integration today, if you pay for PlexPass (which really isn't that expensive).

Only if I want to transcode a lot of stuff. Most of those ripped DVDs are still in original format instead of a single video file. Plex does not support that unfortunately.

[Fuzzy]

Correct, but honestly, I see no reason to keep MPEG-2 as such. H.264 Lvl 4.1 + AAC is pretty much industry standard for any digital player these days, so might as well stick with it.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by Brent

Only if I want to transcode a lot of stuff. Most of those ripped DVDs are still in original format instead of a single video file. Plex does not support that unfortunately.

I know what you mean. I originally ripped my DVDs to folder structures, too. I started converting them to MKVs via MakeMKV, so that they would work with Plex, but I lost interest before finishing that process. At some point I'll go back and finish it.

Fuzzy's got a point. I probably should have just encoded them using Handbrake while I was at it. I did that with my TV shows to conserve some space. I didn't bother with movies, mostly trying to save time, although my new computer probably encodes almost as fast as I can read and write to my unRAID array.

Plex probably does seem like the best way to get local movies and Sage recordings to the Chromecast. The Plex transcoder is pretty good- I doubt someone is going to come along and noticeably improve upon it. I just wish it worked with Quick Sync.

[panteragstk]

I'd have no issue converting everything, but I need a better way to automate the process. As of now I'd have to do them one at a time. Too many for me to even think about that.

[Brent]

I decided to go ahead and convert at least some of my collection from dvd folders into mkv's using MakeMKV Batch converter. Works fairly well and does it in larger batches. I think Plex plus Chromecast might end up being my movie streaming solution after all.

[eqwalker]

I currently have Plex (with a PlexPass) and really like it so far. I have a Roku in the living room along with the HD300 but now only use Sage for recorded or live TV. I have read that you could get Plex to see and play your recorded shows but I'm not sure I know how to set that all up. Is it pretty straight forward? I have read about the Phoenix channel but don't know what that is or how it plays a part in this. I run Sage on a separate server and Plex on another server. I truly love the way Plex gives you the ability to stream your shows out over the net (albeit at a reduced bit rate) and the interface is nice. Now if I could get it to see my Sage recorded shows. Does anyone have a Wiki or setup manual to set that up?

Sorry, don't mean to hijack this thread from Chromcast

[rrhorer]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

I'd have no issue converting everything, but I need a better way to automate the process. As of now I'd have to do them one at a time. Too many for me to even think about that.

Try MediaShrink by EvilPenquin:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...ht=mediashrink
It is built on perl code and uses a number of tools (ffmpeg, mencoder, handbrake, etc.) to automate the entire encoding process for you. I usually save up and encode three DVD folders at a time simply by highlighting all three and dragging them onto the MediaShrink icon. It encodes the DVDs in sequence, one at a time in a batch process; however, I do believe it uses multiple CPUs since my six core finishes so much faster (about 20 minutes/DVD) than my old dual core (about two hours/DVD). I'm not sure, but don't see why you couldn't batch process a large number of DVDs at a time (i.e., over night). The default settings (which I use, but can be changed) provide good quality and generally result in about 1.7 GB per DVD.