I’ll often stream a movie or show from a streaming app on my phone and cast it to my tv. But sometimes I’ll leave to go run an errand and take my phone while my family is still watching. How does it keep streaming when I’m gone?
In: Technology
Why would your phone know where you are?
It depends on the equipment and the software. Android TV and Chromecast don’t necessary need the phone to send it the video stream if the appropriate app is installed. Chromecast has Youtube support, it just needs needs to be told what to do and it does the rest on its own. When you leave it doesn’t even realize, it’s too busy playing the youtube video involved.
Casting tells the source of the stream to send the stream to the TV rather than to your phone. This might (or might not, depending on the stream source) continue to work if the phone goes away or is turned off.
For Chromecast and similar setups, when you press “cast”, unless the application needs to mirror your device screen (such as if you’re sharing your entire screen), it’s just telling the streaming device where to pull content from. After that point, the device that started the cast doesn’t need to be connected except for media controls.
It would be very inefficient for a streaming app to send the data through your phone. The video data would need to go from your router to your phone (wifi), then from the phone back to the router (wifi), then from the router to your TV (either wifi or wired, depending on TV). You are possibly sending the video data *three times* across your wifi.
What most “casting” apps actually do is just send an instruction to the smart TV or streaming device to start playing. From that point on, your TV gets the video directly from the internet/router.
Your phone is playing the same role as your remote control. It sends an instruction, but the TV does the rest of the work.
The TV doesn’t care where your phone is any more than it cares where the remote control is. If you were watching regular cable TV used the remote control to pick a channel, then took the remote with you to the grocery store, everyone at home would still be able to watch that TV. They wouldn’t be able to change the channel easily, but the TV wouldn’t care at all where the remote went.
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