Today I took delivery of Google’s new Chromecast, “Chromecast with Google TV”, which I’ve set up and begun casting to from the GCN Android app.
From my testing so far, no buffering issues when playing recorded content.
I’ve not tested/watched extensively, but all looks good so far, and I’ll report back if I do see issues over the next week or two…
I did hope that this new device would resolve the problem, as the new Chromecast has loads of processing grunt compared to the old one. Also, these new ones have a remote control, which makes controlling Casted content much more convenient: pause/play, Skip back/fwd 30s controls in the GCN app accesible from the remote, plus volume buttons in the remote, leaving your phone largely untouched. This is miles more convenient and enjoyable to use than the old thing.
It now doesn’t look quite so good, and my testing points towards there maybe being an issue with how the GCN app handles casting of recorded material. Maybe @Brian_GCN could take an interest here?
I’ve now got my “Chromecast with Google TV” wired to my router using one of Google’s “Ethernet Adapter for Chromecast with Google TV” power supplies, in order to remove WiFi from the equation.
My broadband is a rock-solid 35-37 Mbps download speed, 8Mbps upload.
If I cast a recording of yesterday’s GCN “The Breakaway” Episode 16 from a device to the “Chromecast with Google TV”, then I always get a buffering event around the 7:14-7:17 point in that specific recording.
This buffering event occurs (persists) across reboots of the Chromecast, reboots of the Android phone I was casting from, and also occurs at that same point if I instead cast from another device, eg. from a Chromebook. Perhaps there’s some caching going on somewhere at GCN’s servers, to explain why each device I stream from hits that buffering issue at exactly the same point
=> Anyway, to me the above suggests the issue isn’t at my end and perhaps is a problem with GCN’s app / server combo when it comes to casting recorded content.
To reiterate: in testing this new Chromecast, I’ve not seen any of these occasional buffering issues with live content so far, just recorded.
Has anyone else taken delivery of one of these new Chromecasts and bumped into this same issue with recorded content as used to occur with the previous gen CC?
Yesterday I was watching a Casted recording of the Long Highlights of the day’s Giro stage, and the buffering events were very frequent, making for a frustrating viewing experience
In that same period, I was able to cast from other video apps and saw zero buffering with those - and indeed never do.
We’re aware of this issue and are working on it, we’re hoping to fix it pretty soon, sorry for the disruption to smooth viewing in the mean time and thanks for feeding back
While I initially enjoyed the content I am now totally bummed out that the Race pass is really buggy. First I had to sign out and back in all the time and now I cannot access the content at all even though I am a paying subscriber. Support just comes back with requests for more information and I already missed the queen stage of the giro yesterday, today’s giro and Vuelta and most likely the coming weekend as well. Which is „only“ the grand finale of the giro
Anyone trying to watch the CX World Cup from Hulst on GCN Race Pass? I expected live coverage, but just get a banner saying ‘watch replay’ for the women’s race (I’m in the UK).
On flow bike and NBC SN, Its good, has all the basic races plus a few rando’s but good. The Ian and friends is starting to grow on me and used to all their other commentators. The Ultraromance bike packing series is worth watching but the “tour” they went on was was one of the softest backpacking tours i’ve ever seen filmed or otherwise.
i’ve caught bits of JPOW’s commentary and really like it but not for what GCN charges and after CX what for.
In the US. I bought gcn+ yesterday with the Feb sale after seeing it mentioned in the flo-bikes thread. If it was $25 back last year I would have signed up then – just for the cx races. I have some back-races to watch, but its working well so far.
I’m also in the US, and trying to understand what the deal will be with GCN+ for US subscribers.
So it says 3 grand tours and a total of 290 days of racing, but them some note about depending on local access/rights or something?
I had started to try to jailbreak a Amazon Fire 4K to put ExpressVPN and a paid EuroSport (I believe 40 euro/year) on it for my 2021 viewing, but GCN+ might be a whole lot easier.
I’m confused if I can sign up for GCN+, and then get the races they own the US rights for, and then if say TdF isn’t covered, I can just use a VPN and get the blocked races (or will it be based on billing address and US subscribers can only get US races …).
I see the 1/2 price for your first year special lasts all month, so I’ve got a few weeks to decide, but it’s tough when the information is a little hard to find.
This is exactly it. You can sign up for GCN+ (formerly race pass), and you will get all the US races as a baseline. Then if using a VPN, you can set the country to any place in Europe, and the become available in the US. That’s what a ton of us do. It’s not like EuroSport, and you do not need a European billing address to get access.
Yeah, the US offering is definitely not everything GCN+ has available. It is a little challenging figuring out exactly what I have access to. The UI sucks a bit as the webviewer shows me the UCI CX races, but when I pick them it says “whoops!” or some crap. I assume a vpn would get me around this, but I’m indifferent for now.
so far.
