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I have an 8" tablet that has some films and programmes I'd like to watch. I have a telly that has an HDMI port. I have a mobile phone. I [i]DON'T[/i] have a router.*
Great, I thought - I can buy a chromecast, plug it into the telly and watch my programmes on a big screen - but then I started to wonder. Can the tablet talk directly to the chromecast? DOes it *need* a router? Can I use the mobile phone as a wifi hotspot to allow them to talk to each other? Sensible advice welcomed, thanks in advance
*if you;re really interested, i's because this is the setup in the caravan. I have a router at home of course 🙂
you could probably use your phone as a hotspot yes, the chromecast and tablet just need to be on the same wireless network.
EDIT: yes, you can.
I use an mhl adapter which connects my tablet to my tv hdmi port. It mirrors everything shown on the tablet to the tv.
Here are some APS that should/could help.
I'm aware that you need to be connected to the internet when you first set up your Chromecast - I can do that bit at home. I'm more thinking of the practicalities of connecting the devices while away without an internet connection: I don't have a data plan and don't really want to connect my old and useless phone to the internet so I can watch a film that I already have in my tablet. Might have to borrow one to see if I can get it to work.
Unless you set up a wireless network the Chromecast won't work.
You can download allcast to your tablet and use the phone as the hotspot then cast from the tablet.
Well I've borrowed a Chromecast from work and set up my tablet to cast to it. The problem is that Google seem to think - like the BBC iPlayer team - that you'll only ever use it while at home and connected to the internet. I can stream iPlayer content OK, but the local files I have stored on the tablet ate not working. I'm using RealPlayer Cloud to play local files, as it's the only Chromecast ready app that supports local videos. It plays some of my videos locally, but not all, eg it doesn't like my mkv files. It won't cast anything to the telly. As I'm on a tablet I can't install the chrome extension to cast a browser tab
Oh and yes. IPlayer is rubbish. I downloaded some stuff to watch while we were away last week. Fired up iPlayer to watch the downloaded programmes, but iPlayer wanted to context to the internet in order to tell me what it had. GGGGGGRRRRRTTT
BubbleUPNP plays local content to the Chromecast here without any bother, and does some transcoding magic to convert formats on the fly. Whenever I open iPlayer when we don't have a signal it just goes straight to the downloaded files so don't know what is going wrong for you...
Oh and yes. IPlayer is rubbish. I downloaded some stuff to watch while we were away last week. Fired up iPlayer to watch the downloaded programmes, but iPlayer wanted to context to the internet in order to tell me what it had. GGGGGGRRRRRTTT
Somethings not right there, are you sure they finished downloading? We do it all the time, download a load of kids programmes for in the car/whilst away.
By the way I use ES File Explorer (you'll need the Chromecast Plugin as well) on Android for playing local files (I'm pretty sure it plays network files as well but haven't tried that yet). So far it's played everything I've wanted to.
How about getting a 3 mifi that will create a wireless network wherever you go? Brilliant bits of kit.
Otherwise just watch the videos on your tablet.
Hmmm. I just rebooted my tablet, turned off WiFi and fired up iPlayer. As you say, it offered me the chance to watch downloaded programmes. Must have been a glitch while we were away.
Will check out bubble upnp, thanks for the tip.
Bubble upnp rocks, cheers for that. It's playing everything perfectly without issues. To cast my hi def mkv files, I've had to install bubblleupnp server on my Ubuntu netbook, it's working fine albeit with a twenty minute playback limit
The next step is to get the Chromecast to work via the WiFi hotspot running on one of the phones. At the molten my, Chromecast doesn't like the fact that it can talk to the phone, but can't then get out to the internet. I suspect that this is because I have no mobile data on the phone. More testing tomorrow...
could you not get a cable to connect your tab to the tv
Tablet is an LG GPad, it doesn't have HDMI out 🙁
I'm liking the Chromecast in general, great for watching stuff on the big telly rather than on my tablet (Sonic Highways is playing at the moment), both from the internet and with the right ado's from my local network.
Don't think it's a goer for offline viewing though, from what I can see the dongle has the Google DNS "hardwired" and it expects to talk to Google whenever you try to connect to it. Even when the Chromecast is connecting to a network that it's connected to before, if that network doesn't have an outbound connection to the internet, you can't seem to connect your device to the Chromecast dongle. Got a couple more tests to run, but I'm not hopeful 🙁