Google Developers Blog: google cast

Introducing Analytics for Google Cast Applications

Friday, March 4, 2016

Posted by Chris Dolan, Software Engineer on the Google Cast Server Infrastructure Team

As a Google Cast developer, you may be wondering how many devices access your application, how many sessions those devices initiate, and how long those sessions play media. Until now, you needed to implement your own instrumentation to get this information. Not anymore! Today, we’re excited to announce that we’re making all this data available right from the Google Cast Developer Console. To check it out, log on as usual to the developer console with your developer account. In the ‘Application’ table, click on the ‘View’ link in the new ‘Statistics’ column for your application

Caption: The applications page showing a single app with the ‘View’ link called out

The analytics page contains a tab for each metric, an interactive graph of the metric’s values over time, and tables containing the most recent day’s data. The devices tab shows the number of Cast devices that have launched your application, the sessions tab shows the number of Cast sessions of your application, and the average playback tab shows the average length of media playback time per session for your *application.

The analytics page showing the tabs, graph, and tables of data
Each tab’s data can be viewed in total, by country, or by sender platform. To see data for a particular country or platform, simply click the appropriate row in the table. Each tab’s data is available on a per-day basis, as well as in seven, fourteen, and twenty-eight day rolling totals. To change the aggregation range, select the desired range from the range picker at the top right.We hope these analytics give you insight into how your Google Cast applications are being used and enable you to see the impact of your improvements. To learn more, see the developer documentation.

Cast Remote Display API: Processing

Friday, July 10, 2015

Posted by Leon Nicholls, Developer Programs EngineerRemote Display on Google Cast allows your app to display both on your mobile and Cast device at the same time. Processing is a programming language that allows artists and hobbyists to create advanced graphics and interactive exhibitions. By putting these two things together we were able to quickly create stunning visual art and display it on the big screen just by bringing our phone to the party or gallery. This article describes how we added support for the Google Cast Remote Display APIs to Processing for Android and how you can too.

An example app from the popular Processing toxiclibs library on Cast. Download the code and run it on your own Chromecast!A little backgroundProcessing has its own IDE and has many contributed libraries that hide the technical details of various input, output and rendering technologies. Users of Processing with just basic programming skills can create complicated graphical scenes and visualizations.To write a program in the Processing IDE you create a “sketch” which involves adding code to life-cycle callbacks that initialize and draw the scene. You can run the sketch as a Java program on your desktop. You can also enable support for Processing for Android and then run the same sketch as an app on your Android mobile device. It also supports touch events and sensor data to interact with the generated apps.Instead of just viewing the graphics on the small screen of the Android device, we can do better by projecting the graphics on a TV screen. Google Cast Remote Display APIs makes it easy to bring graphically intensive apps to Google Cast receivers by using the GPUs, CPUs and sensors available on the mobile devices you already have.How we did itAdding support for Remote Display involved modifying the Processing for Android Mode source code. To compile the Android Mode you first need to compile the source code of the Processing IDE. We started with the source code of the current stable release version 2.2.1 of the Processing IDE and compiled it using its Ant build script (detailed instructions are included along with the code download). We then downloaded the Android SDK and source code for the Android Mode 0232. After some minor changes to its build config to support the latest Android SDK version, we used Ant to build the Android Mode zip file. The zip file was unzipped into the Processing IDE modes directory.We then used the IDE to open one of the Processing example sketches and exported it as an Android project. In the generated project we replaced the processing-core.jar library with the source code for Android Mode. We also added a Gradle build config to the project and then imported the project into Android Studio.The main Activity for a Processing app is a descendent of the Android Mode PApplet class. The PApplet class uses a GLSurfaceView for rendering 2D and 3D graphics. We needed to change the code to use that same GLSurfaceView for the Remote Display API.It is a requirement in the Google Cast Design Checklist for the Cast button to be visible on all screens. We changed PApplet to be an ActionBarActivity so that we can show the Cast button in the action bar. The Cast button was added by using a MediaRouteActionProvider. To only list Google Cast devices that support Remote Display, we used a MediaRouteSelector with an App ID we obtained from the Google Cast SDK Developer Console for a Remote Display Receiver.Next, we created a class called PresentationService that extends CastRemoteDisplayLocalService. The service allows the app to keep the remote display running even when it goes into the background. The service requires a CastPresentation instance for displaying its content. The CastPresentation instance uses the GLSurfaceView from the PApplet class for its content view. However, setting the CastPresentation content view requires some changes to PApplet so that the GLSurfaceView isn’t initialized in its onCreate, but waits until the service onRemoteDisplaySessionStarted callback is invoked.When the user selects a Cast device in the Cast button menu and the MediaRouter onRouteSelected event is called, the service is started with CastRemoteDisplayLocalService.startService. When the user disconnects from a Cast device using the Cast button, MediaRouter onRouteUnselected event is called and the service is stopped by using CastRemoteDisplayLocalService.stopService.For the mobile display, we display an image bitmap and forward the PApplet touch events to the existing surfaceTouchEvent method. When you run the Android app, you can use touch gestures on the display of the mobile device to control the interaction on the TV. Take a look at this video of some of the Processing apps running on a Chromecast.Most of the new code is contained in the PresentationService and RemoteDisplayHelper classes. Your mobile device needs to have at least Android KitKat and Google Play services version 7.5.71.You can tooNow you can try the Remote Display APIs in your Processing apps. Instead of changing the generated code every time you export your Android Mode project, we recommend that you use our project as a base and simply copy your generated Android code and libraries to our project. Then simply modify the project build file and update the manifest to start the app with your sketch’s main Activity.To see a more detailed description on how to use the Remote Display APIs, read our developer documentation. We are eager to see what Processing artists can do with this code in their projects.

Quake® III on your TV with Cast Remote Display API

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Posted by Leon Nicholls, Developer Programs Engineer and Antonio Fontan, Software EngineerAt Google I/O 2015 we announced the new Google Cast Remote Display APIs for Android and iOS that make it easy for mobile developers to bring graphically intensive apps or games to Google Cast receivers. Now you can use the powerful GPUs, CPUs and sensors of the mobile device in your pocket to render both a local display and a virtual one to the TV. This dual display model also allows you to design new game experiences for the display on the mobile device to show maps, game pieces and private game information.We wanted to show you how easy it is to take an existing high performance game and run it on a Chromecast. So, we decided to port the classic Quake® III Arena open source engine to support Cast Remote Display. We reached out to ID Software and they thought it was a cool idea too. When all was said and done, during our 2015 I/O session “Google Cast Remote Display APIs for Games” we were able to present the game in 720p at 60 fps!

During the demo we used a wired USB game controller to play the game, but we've also experimented with using the mobile device sensors, a bluetooth controller, a toy gun and even a dance mat as game controllers. Since you're probably wondering how you can do this too, here's the details of how we added Cast Remote Display to Quake. The game engine was not modified in any way and the whole process took less than a day with most of our time spent removing UI code not needed for the demo. We started by using an existing source port of Quake III to Android which includes some usage of kwaak3 and ioquake3 source code.Next, we registered a Remote Display App ID using the Google Cast SDK Developer Console. There’s no need to write a Cast receiver app as the Remote Display APIs are supported natively by all Google Cast receivers. To render the local display, the existing main Activity was converted to an ActionBarActivity. To discover devices and to allow a user to select a Cast device to connect to, we added support for the Cast button using MediaRouteActionProvider. The MediaRouteActionProvider adds a Cast button to the action bar. We then set the MediaRouteSelector for the MediaRouter using the App ID we obtained and added a callback listener using MediaRouter.addCallback. We modified the existing code to display an image bitmap on the local display.To render the remote display, we extended CastPresentation and called setContentView with the game’s existing GLSurfaceView instance. Think of the CastPresentation as the Activity for the remote display. The game audio engine was also started at that point.Next we created a service extending CastRemoteDisplayLocalService which would then create an instance of our CastPresentation class. The service will manage the remote display even when the local app goes into the background. The service automatically provides a convenient notification to allow the user to dismiss the remote display.Then we start our service when the MediaRouter onRouteSelected event is called by using CastRemoteDisplayLocalService.startService and stop the service when the MediaRouter onRouteUnselected event is called by using CastRemoteDisplayLocalService.stopService.To see a more detailed description on how to use the Remote Display APIs, read our developer documentation. We have also published a sample app on GitHub that is UX compliant.You can download the code that we used for the demo. To run the app you have to compile it using Gradle or Android Studio. You will also need to copy the "baseq3" folder from your Quake III game to the “qiii4a” folder in the root of the SD card of your Android mobile device. Your mobile device needs to have at least Android KitKat and Google Play services version 7.5.71.With 17 million Chromecast devices sold and 1.5 billion touches of the Cast button, the opportunity for developers is huge, and it’s simple to add this extra functionality to an existing game. We're eager to see what amazing experiences you create using the Cast Remote Display APIs.QUAKE II © 1997 and QUAKE III © 1999 id Software LLC, a ZeniMax Media company. QUAKE is a trademark or registered trademark of id Software LLC in the U.S. and/or other countries. QUAKE game assets used under license from id Software LLC. All Rights ReservedQIII4A © 2012 n0n3m4. GNU General Public License.Q3E © 2012 n0n3m4. GNU General Public License.

Google I/O 2015: Develop, Engage & Earn

Thursday, May 28, 2015

Posted by Jason Titus, Senior Director of Engineering This morning, we kicked off our 8th annual Google I/O conference, joined by 5,600 developers at Moscone Center, 530 I/O Extended communities around the world, and millions via the I/O Live stream. This year’s event is focused on delivering incredible experiences on mobile and helping developers build successful businesses through these key themes: Develop, Engage, and Earn. During the keynote, we had a number of announcements that covered the evolution of the mobile platform, tools for Android, iOS, and Web developers, and the push towards more immersive mobile experiences with VR. Here’s a closer look at the news: Develop

Android M Developer Preview — Get an early look at the next version of Android.

Google Play services 7.5 — Check out new features like Smart Lock for Passwords, new APIs for Google Cloud Messaging and

Google Cast, and the Google Maps API on Android Wear devices.

Android Studio 1.3 — Preview Android Studio v1.3, now with improved Gradle build speed, a new memory profiler, and full editing and debugging support for C/C++.

Polymer 1.0 — As the first production-ready release for the web components library, we’re also adding new product lines of elements. Features range from toolbars and menus to offline caching.

iOS & CocoaPods — Access your favorite libraries via CocoaPods, the official distribution channel for Google SDKs on iOS.

Cloud Test Lab — Building on the technology from our acquisition of Appurify, cloud Test Lab automates the testing of your mobile apps.

Firebase — Firebase makes it easy to build apps quickly, without spinning up servers or writing server-side code.

Engage

App Indexing — Index your app’s content into Google Search, just like you would with a website. Available for Android, and now piloting on iOS.

Google Cloud Messaging — As one of the most popular ways to send messages from the cloud to user's devices on Android and Chrome, GCM is now also available on iOS.

Engagement on the Web — Access previously unavailable native functionality on the web with push notifications from your mobile website and add to homescreen.

Empowering successful global businesses on Google Play — Get new and powerful tools to help you further grow your business, improve decision making based on smarter insights, and engage and retain a valuable user base.

Universal App Campaigns coming soon — Set up app install ads with just a few inputs like your budget and the cost you’re willing to pay per user--we take care of the rest.

Measure App Installs Ads with Google Analytics — Measure app install campaigns based on engagement and lifetime value. On iOS, Google Analytics is now integrated with 20+ ad networks making it easy to understand how to spend your acquisition budget.

Earn

AdMob — Monetize your apps intelligently on a single platform, so you can gain insights about your users, drive more in-app purchases and maximize your ad revenue.

What’s Next

Android Nanodegree — Enroll in the industry's first Android Nanodegree, developed in collaboration with Udacity. The curriculum was built from the ground up s to meet the high standard we have for Android development. The Nanodegree covers everything from fundamentals to advanced development skills, as well as Google Play services and Material Design.

Cardboard SDK — The Cardboard SDK for Unity now supports both Android and iOS.

Announcing new Google Cast APIs

Thursday, May 28, 2015

Posted by Nathan Camarillo and David Allison, Google Cast Product Managers Google Cast makes it easy for developers to extend their mobile experiences to bigger screens and speakers. Since the launch of Chromecast, the first Google Cast device, we’ve seen tremendous success. 17 million Chromecast devices have been sold, with 1.5 billion touches of the Cast button, changing the way people watch TV. In the US, active Chromecast users are consuming 66% more content per day than at launch in July 2013. We see a 45% increase in YouTube watch time upon a Chromecast activation.The Google Cast ecosystem continues to grow, with a range of new entertainment devices with Google Cast built-in-- from Chromecast and Android TV devices to speakers and soundbars.Today at Google I/O, we are announcing new developer tools specifically for mobile app and game developers to bring new experiences to the TV. Google Cast Remote Display APIs (Beta)We are making it easy for mobile developers to bring graphically intensive apps or games to Google Cast receivers with Google Cast Remote Display APIs for Android and iOS. While Casting your Android screen is an existing option for users, the new Remote Display API allows mobile developers to build a tailored, integrated second screen experience, without requiring an identical mirroring of content between mobile devices and the Google Cast device. Remote Display will be available both iOS and Android. Your app will contain the same Google Cast icon allowing users to select a device. On Android, you’ll connect to the device using the helper class CastRemoteDisplayLocalService, then create a subclass of CastPresentation where you can call setContentView() to display any content you want (including drawing directly on a SurfaceView!). The contents of your CastPresentation are then sent over to the connected Google Cast device for display. On iOS, you’ll use the core Google Cast SDK to discover receivers and connect to one, then GCKRemoteDisplayChannel to establish a new Remote Display session. Your app will then send video and audio frames via the session. Adaptors for OpenGL ES and Metal are provided to help integrating Remote Display with existing rendering code.There’s no need to write a receiver app as the Remote Display APIs are supported natively by all Google Cast receivers. However, you’ll still need to register a Remote Display App ID using the Google Cast SDK Developer Console.See Remote Display in action with Driver® Speedboat Paradise:

Autoplay and Queuing APIsAutoplay and Queuing APIs allow developers to create content queues and begin buffering a second video while a first video is finishing playback. This enables the creation of a continuous playback experience and can significantly increase watch time, helping lift per-session watch times by 10-20% or more.Playing single media items on Chromecast has been something RemoteMediaPlayer (or CastCompanionLibrary’s VideoCastController) has been doing well for some time. With this release, RemoteMediaPlayer is gaining a full media queue, allowing you to queue up multiple MediaQueueItems, skip between items, set a repeat mode, reorder the queue, and enable autoplay for a seamless media playback experience. The MediaStatus returned to you will be augmented with the current queue of items as well as new OnPreloadStatusUpdatedListener, allowing you to display what will be played next. This ensures that all connected devices can easily maintain a synchronized queue of upcoming media items, opening up new possibilities of creating collaborative Google Cast media experiences. Game Manager APIs for Google CastSince last November, Cast has had the ability to turn your TV screen into a game board, racetrack, dance floor, or trivia quiz—inviting everyone in your living room to use their phone as a personal game controller. Now we’re introducing new Game Manager APIs that will simplify the process for developers to build multiplayer games. To make it easier to synchronize game state across a potentially large number of players, Google Play services 7.5 introduces the Cast Game Manager API. This API, available for Android via the GameManagerClient class, iOS, Chrome, and for receivers, allows you to send messages and state changes to all connected clients and the receiver. All of the send methods also have a method that includes a specific player ID, making it possible to have multiple players sharing a single sender device.All of these APIs are available on Android today. iOS and Chrome SDK updates will be available in the coming days. You can learn more about these Google Cast APIs on the Google Cast Developers Site. We’re excited to see what you come up with to bring more mobile-centric experiences to the living room.

Building Games with Google Cast is Easy and Powerful

Friday, November 14, 2014

By Nathan Camarillo, Chromecast Product Manager for Games announced several Google Cast gamesGoogle Cast SDKChromecastAndroid TV

Google Cast Design Principles

Cast Away with Android TV and Google Cast

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

By Dave Burke and Majd Bakar, Engineering Directors and TV Junkies

Last summer, we launched Chromecast, a small, affordable device that lets you cast online video, music and anything from the web to your TV. Today at Google I/O, we announced Android TV, the newest form factor to the Android platform, and a way to extend the reach of Google Cast to more devices, like televisions, set-top boxes and consoles.Check out Coming to a Screen Near You for some details on everything we’re doing to make your TV the place to be.For developers though--sorry, you don’t get to unwind in front of the TV. We need you to get to work and help us create the best possible TV experience, with all of the new features announced at I/O today.Get started with Android TVIn addition to Google Cast apps that send content to the TV, you can now build immersive native apps and console-style games on Android TV devices. These native apps work with TV remotes and gamepads, even if you don’t have your phone handy. The Android L Developer Preview SDK includes the new Leanback support library that allows you to design smoother, simpler, living room apps. And this is just the beginning. In the fall, new APIs will allow you to cast directly to these apps, so users can control the app with the phone, the remote, or even their Android Wear watch. You’ll also start seeing Android TV set-top boxes, consoles and televisions from Sony, TP Vision, Sharp, Asus, Razer and more.Help more users find your Google Cast appWe want to help users more easily find your content, so we’ve improved the Google Cast SDK developer console to let you upload your app icon, app name, and app category for Android, iOS and Chrome. These changes will help your app get discovered on chromecast.com/apps and on Google Play.

Additional capabilities have also been added to the Google Cast SDK. These include: Media Player Library enhancements, bringing easier integration with MPEG-DASH Smooth Streaming, and HLS. We’ve also added WebAudio & WebGL support, made the Cast Companion Library available, and added enhanced Closed Caption support. And coming soon, we will add support for queuing and ID delegation. Ready to get started? Visit developer.android.com/tv and developers.google.com/cast for the SDKs, style guides, tutorials, sample code, and the API references. You can also request an ADT-1 devkit to bootstrap your Android TV development. Posted by Louis Gray, Googler

Google I/O 2014 I/O Livestreams I/O Bytes Videos +Google Developers

Google Design Android Wear Android TV Android Auto

Explore the conference with the Google I/O 2014 Android app:

Taking Chrome Experiments to the TV

Thursday, March 27, 2014

By Igor Clark, Google Creative LabGoogle Cast SDKHook StudiosPhotowall for ChromecastChrome ExperimentChromecastSo how does it work? Chrome APIiOSAndroidReceiver APITying it all together: The meshmesh networkwebsocketsGoogle Compute Enginenode.jsGoogle App EngineApp Engine DatastoreA workaround for websocketsCustom photo editing Igor Clark is Creative Tech Lead at Google Creative Lab. The Creative Lab is a small team of makers and thinkers whose mission is to remind the world what it is they love about Google.Posted by Louis Gray, Googler

Ready to cast: Chromecast now open to developers with the Google Cast SDK

Monday, February 3, 2014

By John Affaki, Engineering ManagerUpdated Feb. 14 to say that the Google Cast SDK for Android is now available.JulyGoogle Cast SDKGoogle Cast developer consoleReceiver app supportMPEG-DASHHLSMicrosoft Smooth StreamingMedia Player LibrarySample appsuser experiencesample appsCast Companion libraryAvailabilityGoogle Cast extension for ChromeGoogle Play services 4.2 updatedocumentationGoogle Cast DevelopersfeedbackJohn Affaki manages the client software and services teams for Google Cast. He never grew out of childhood and spends his free time playing video games and reading comic books, but is glad to have some real kids now.Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

Jun	JUL	Aug
	05
2016	2017	2018

Blog

Introducing Analytics for Google Cast Applications

Cast Remote Display API: Processing

Quake® III on your TV with Cast Remote Display API

Google I/O 2015: Develop, Engage & Earn

Announcing new Google Cast APIs

Building Games with Google Cast is Easy and Powerful

Cast Away with Android TV and Google Cast

Taking Chrome Experiments to the TV

Ready to cast: Chromecast now open to developers with the Google Cast SDK

Labels

Archive

Company-wide

Products

Developers