Google Play via Chromecast/iPad: does it suck for everyone, or just me?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So we watched The Interview last night. Funny, goofy, and I’m all for making fun of Kim Jung Un.

Of course, it’s only available via a few different streaming services, none of which I’ve used before (I’m a Netflix/Amazon girl, not an XBox/Google girl). That said, we have a Chromecast and an iPad, so I fired it up and rented the movie. It was watchable, but just barely. In case I ever want to watch something via GooglePlay/Chromecast again, I’m wondering if it was an anomaly or if it’s always like this.

First issue: The streaming sucked. It kept pausing with the little spinner going. I’d say every 15-20 minutes we’d get a pause, sometimes more frequently. We stream all the time from HBO, Netflix, and Showtime and rarely have issues. Was it just that everyone in the world was streaming The Interview last night, or is this an issue with Chromecast/Google Play?

Second issue: using the iPad to control the movie. This was fine, until the iPad went into sleep mode. Then it inevitably lost the connection to the Chromecast. Once or twice I was able to get it to re-connect, but other times it acted as if it had no idea we were streaming a movie and I’d have to restart it all over and fast-forward to where we were simply to pause it so we could get another drink or whatever. Very much not fun. How the hell are you supposed to control that thing with an iPad/iPhone? That alone was enough to make me never want to really watch something via the Chromecast any more.

2

Ugh. Yes, it sucks.

I own an Apple TV and quite regularly stream HD films on it via iTunes, as well as stream Netflix. I do likewise on my iPhone when traveling or in my bed.

Never have problems.

I rented the HD version of the Interview and unfortunately could not access it on my Apple TV (I have the most recent updates installed, but still couldn’t “see” my purchase in the YouTube app).

That was strike one, which I’m going to mark against Apple, since for some reason the Apple TV would not utilize the most recent YouTube app, despite indicating it was fully up to date.

So I went with my iPhone 6 with its big screen and my pair of Bose noise canceling headphones. I opened the YouTube app, located the purchase and started watching. I was happy as a clam for about 5 minutes, then the playback started to suffer weird visual issues, then playback began to lag. I tried ignoring it and soldiered on for 40 minutes, but finally gave up when it started repeatedly freezing and skipping.

That was strike two, which I’m leveling against Google, since for years I have had no problems with iTunes (or more recently Netflix) on my phone in this scenario.

Finally, I took out my trusty MacBook and plugged my Bose headphones into that. Unfortunately, I had to watch the film through YouTube in my browser (Chrome). That meant really crappy controls and the very white band both top and bottom of the browser. However, the playback was otherwise good. I tried going to full screen to remove the white bands, but then video quality suffered quite a bit and it started to have buffer issues. So I stayed at normal view, and a bit annoyed.

That was strike three, again against Google, since I have watched numerous films on that MacBook over the years via iTunes and Netflix.

My consensus now is that I will not be using Google again for renting movies. Instead I’ll stick with iTunes and Netflix.

Oh, and the film was pretty good!