Will cheap laptop be powerful enough to tabcast video?

AleT · Mar 21, 2014

I am in the market for a cheap laptop, but having recently acquired a chromecast, I'd like it to be powerful enough to tabcast HD video.

Many of the cheaper machines have an i5-4200U processor. This has a 1.6GHz clock speed, with a turbo mode speed of 2.6GHz.

The tabcasting min specs say 2GHz for an i5, so I'm not sure whether the i5-4200U would be powerful enough.

Has anyone here tried one?

bhiga · Mar 21, 2014

AleT said:
I am in the market for a cheap laptop, but having recently acquired a chromecast, I'd like it to be powerful enough to tabcast HD video.

Many of the cheaper machines have an i5-4200U processor. This has a 1.6GHz clock speed, with a turbo mode speed of 2.6GHz.

The tabcasting min specs say 2GHz for an i5, so I'm not sure whether the i5-4200U would be powerful enough.

Has anyone here tried one?

Difficult to say. If your intent is to tab-cast a video, I would say that's probably not enough CPU horsepower.
The minimum tab-casting spec is likely just for casting a static tab (like a web page), not including the additional CPU load for video playback.

Do you have a specific use case in mind?

AleT · Mar 21, 2014

bhiga said:
Difficult to say. If your intent is to tab-cast a video, I would say that's probably not enough CPU horsepower.
The minimum tab-casting spec is likely just for casting a static tab (like a web page), not including the additional CPU load for video playback.

Do you have a specific use case in mind?

Hi,

I want to cast sites that don't yet have casting enabled natively, like like itvplayer, BTSport and 4od (UK only). Mainly flash based video.

I can cast a static tab using a ~6yr old celeron laptop, but if I try one of these video sites, it stutters and tells me my computer may not be fast enough.

The minimum spec I quoted is from https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/3209990?hl=en, and refers to tabcasting high quality video.

bhiga · Mar 21, 2014

AleT said:
Hi,

I want to cast sites that don't yet have casting enabled natively, like like itvplayer, BTSport and 4od (UK only). Mainly flash based video.

I can cast a static tab using a ~6yr old celeron laptop, but if I try one of these video sites, it stutters and tells me my computer may not be fast enough.

The minimum spec I quoted is from https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/3209990?hl=en, and refers to tabcasting high quality video.

Ahh, I see. Then you might be okay, though it's always nice to have more "headroom."
Definitely make sure you have 4 GB or more RAM and of course 64-bit Windows, rather than 32-bit.
Best if the hardware can provide hardware acceleration for Flash as well.

DJames1 · Mar 21, 2014

I tab-cast from my desktop system, i5-3570K 4.2 GHz. It still stutters slightly, no difference at 720p or 480p, even though the overall CPU utilization stays low. I keep retesting with each new update of the Google Cast extension, but there hasn't been any improvement.

Plex can cast the same video stream to the Chromecast from the same desktop computer without stuttering. It's just poor coding by Google.

cmstlist · Mar 24, 2014

Raw GHz isn't really the best measure of performance anyway. The i5 notebook will definitely be good enough for 480p, not sure about HD. Also Windows 8.1 supports wireless screen sharing so if you can find an affordable receiver you'd get smoother results that way.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Asphyx · Mar 24, 2014

DJames1 said:
I tab-cast from my desktop system, i5-3570K 4.2 GHz. It still stutters slightly, no difference at 720p or 480p, even though the overall CPU utilization stays low. I keep retesting with each new update of the Google Cast extension, but there hasn't been any improvement.

Plex can cast the same video stream to the Chromecast from the same desktop computer without stuttering. It's just poor coding by Google.

The stuttering with Tab Casting has more to do with the method they are using to stream as it does the power of the machine doing the streaming...

Tab Casting is (I Think it is anyway) using an M-JPEG to stream to the CCast...

Which is just what it sounds like sending JPG frames in series like it's some sort of Webcam.

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Will cheap laptop be powerful enough to tabcast video?

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