ChromeCast

Google HDMI dongle that brings WiFi to your TV.

Bought one May'2014

• initial config not super-smooth, rebooting the dongle (hold little button down for 10sec) helped
• later, when experimenting with video players, it seemed to freeze, so I rebooted it again... and had to go through the setup all over again!

There aren't a huge number of Android apps that will stream AVI Video to ChromeCast.

• http://liliputing.com/2014/02/these-6-apps-stream-videos-from-android-to-chromecast.html
• Real Player streams MP4 to ChromeCast without using the cloud.
• Real PlayerCloud will take an AVI and stream it back to ChromeCast - but I found it very choppy
• VLC converts AVI to MP4 (M4V) - grr Real Player won't play that format either, which is odd, since it's supposed to...
  • However, some unprotected M4V files may only be recognized and played by other video players by changing the file extension from '.m4v' to '.mp4'.
    • nope, still can't play those files
  • hmm, conversion is set to use H264 and MP3 codecs, which seem like they're supported.
  • if that doesn't work, there's an app that converts from m4v to mp4 - ugh Wondershare's not free. (Though it worked.)
• Ah, Hand Brake is free/Open Source and works!

No Google Chrome browser extension for Android, need more graphics power apparently.

Can I get this to work with The Wife's IPad?

• Must use ITunes - see Copying Non Itunes Video From Computer To Ipad
• But Real Player won't cast ITunes videos! And I didn't find anything else that explicitly would.