Virgin Media Community

[darkmyble]

Hi folks.. Ive looked and cannot find a specific question related to my query so here goes..

So.. I have a Tivo V6 upgraded to 360.. and everything is running fine. My question relates to streaming to the Tivo box via an android mobile phone. Like many others I use my mobile phone a lot to view youtube videos and in some cases I have used the cast function on the youtube app to cast to a google Chromecast obviously on a different HDMI input on my TV. I noticed though that i can now cast directly to 'Virgin TV' which is an awesome addition as it saves me having to switch HDMI channels and casting to Chromecast. When I'm done watching a video i can disconnect and I'm back to normal TV channels or wherever I was before starting the cast. I love this function or ability. However what would be even better is if other apps on my android mobile phone could also cast to 'Virgin TV' (tivo) because at present only the youtube app cast button shows both my chromecast and virgin tv.. apps such as UKTV, Discovery+, Starz and others cannot stream directly to Virgin TV, meaning i have to switch HDMI to Chromecast to use them. 

Its no real hardship but Why is this the case? Why cant the Tivo accept an incoming stream from other apps as well as youtube? if the function is there with youtube.. then surely it can be allowed to do it for other apps. This surely would help people without chromecast or DLNA enabled TV's. 

Its just a thought.. and i look forward to reading your responses.. tia

[newapollo]

Probably rights issues?

Incidentally I could cast you tube from my computer to the V6, I'm not sure about the TIVO.

[darkmyble]

Hi Dave, indeed google chrome's desktop cast function does allow 'certain video sites' although i'm unable to find out which sites are supported other than youtube.. any other source from Google chrome such as desktop or file is labelled 'unsupported'. 

It's always the same with any TV/ISP service. They seem to fall short of delivering what would be a completely accessible package for everyone. Not everyone has a smart TV and as we all know there are varying degrees of 'Smart' these days. Having the ability to stream from a desktop or android device direct to or through the Tivo to TV would be an awesome ability. 

I expect you're right though, theirs bound to be a 'rights' issue somewhere.. it just means that thousands of customers won't be able to benefit from the awesome technology unless they fork out for a smart'er' TV or a cast device of some sort. 

I find it utterly frustrating especially as my 'smart' tv isn't actually that smart.. its a 4k UHD LCD 58" with wifi but no internet.. meaning again i cant download apps to it.. I'm having similar conversations with Fergusson/Cello about accessibility and functionality. Even the new 360 remote cant communicate with my Fergusson TV.. brick walls everywhere on that one. 

Perhaps one day there will be a multi media device that can do ALL these things and more so that customers dont need to faff about turning things over or using seperate devices to access content. 

Anyway I digress into a slight rant so ill leave it there.. 

Cheers Dave

Mark 

[BenMcr]

YouTube on TV has had the ability to accept 'casts' from it's own mobile app for years, originally via a code based paring and more recently via the 'cast' button. Netflix has had something similar.

Both of these used to be 'closed' features i.e. unless you have the TV app installed on the STB it wouldn't work as the TV apps have a way of allowing the mobile apps to identify that they're available. But it also used to be pretty much automatic - if the device ran the YouTube or Netflix apps then the casting option came with them.

Google then released the Chromecast devices, which opened this casting ability up to other apps in part to get closer to Apple's AirPlay feature. It's the Chromecast and Airplay features that allows third party apps like Disney, UKTV etc to get their mobile app to connect.

However it still requires the hardware device connected to the TV to support the 'casting' feature and show as an available device.

So you either need a Chromecast plug-in device, or a TV that has Chromecast as a licenced and built in service. The same is true for Apple's AirPlay system i.e. you either need an Apple TV device, or more recently a third party device that has an AirPlay licence.

However these casting features from third party services can directly affect a subscription TV service, so it's not surprising that it's not available on Virgin TV outside of YouTube and Netflix. Whether that'll always be the case or not I have no idea.

The TV Go app for the 360 box has a 'casting' experience between it and the 360 box for content available from your TV subscription with Virgin Media.

[Felim_Doyle]

The Prime Video app (Android) doesn't appear to have any casting options and BBC iPlayer (Android) will cast to Chromecast but not to the TV 360 box even though both of these are available as apps on the TV 360. So, for now, it appears to be YouTube and Netflix are the only castable apps.

For the record, you can cast YouTube to TiVo from an Android device although I have yet to try it from any other OS.