What's that on my TV? If you said "Webinar Wednesday" you're right!
My brand new Chromecast from Google arrived in today's mail and now I can watch anything in our webinar library from the comfort of my living room recliner on my 55" wide-screen TV without having to connect my laptop to the TV. Talk about genealogy and technology heaven!
Here's how it works.
1. Purchase the Chromecast device. Amazon sells it for $30-35 here.
2. Plug it in to one of the HDMI ports on your television.
3. Plug the included USB power cable into one end of the Chromecast, and the other end into an open USB port on your television.
4. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the setup.
What you can watch
OK, it's not just webinars from our library you can watch on your TV using Chromecast. You can broadcast anything to your TV from your:
- Main computer (using the Chrome browser and extension)
- Laptop (using the Chrome browser)
- Tablet (using the Google Cast app)
- Smart phone (using the Google Cast app)
Also look for the Google Cast button in video apps such as Netflix, YouTube, Hulu and more.
Casting
Once everything's set up (it's really pretty easy) look for the Google Cast button in the upper right of your Chrome browser and click.
Here's what the button's options look like:
And here's another options screen (click the small arrow in the upper right). This lets you cast not just a browser's tab, but your entire monitor.
And here's what my 9-year-old, Braden, looks like as he watches our Genealogy Serendipity webinar from the couch.
I'm not a big TV watcher, but with this technology, I love that I can catch up on or re-watch webinars in our library on the big screen. I might even do it with a bowl of popcorn tonight.
You have the option of using a USB port or (with the included power adapter) an electrical outlet (which is what I use). Lots of uses – I use the chromecast with Netflix (using my mobile as the remote control) as well as anything on my computer (YouTube videos, Google+ Hangouts, local and national television websites, and of course the Legacy Webinar series!). It works great and is easy to set up as Geoff mentioned. Since we don’t watch much “regular” television we have cut that cord (more genealogy funds!). I agree this is a great little tech gadget for $35 (and on sale recently at some retail stores like BestBuy and Target).