Tuesday, November 08, 2016

User Interaction on Chromecast

2016-11-06_15-57-16_HDRI have been using Chrome cast to put my photos on a big screen (primarily on a Big LCD Screen, but also on my “home theatre” projector*) and the results are great but I have very limited interaction. The remote control falls short in so many ways. I can use my mouse and pen/stylus BUT the lag is unbearable if you are looking at the big screen and you can not see the mouse cursor anyway. So Chromecast FAILS on the user interaction front, its strengths are streaming videos and automated slideshows (it is a consumption device)

For this reason I have a short-ish (3m) HDMI cable and always plug my laptop in via it if I want to do any photo editing on the big screen.Image result for hdmi logo I can easy put the laptop down on the coffee table and use my wireless mouse (or even my blue mouse if I want more distance). Also I have a Wacom Bamboo Tablet (with a 1m USB cable just long enough to reach the coffee table)). So I can sit back on the couch (2.5m back from the TV) and work comfortably from the TV screen, no lag and I can see the cursor. I can also set the TV up as a second monitor (another thing you can not attempt with Chromecast).

I have long held the view that images (and particularly photographs) look different at different sizes, and you really are not taking photographs until you blow them up, frame them and display them on the wall, preferable some else’s, or an exhibition. Previewing an image on a Large Screen TV or Projector is getting very close to that criteria.

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