it is low pass By Junko RoettgersA newsletter on the ever-evolving intersection of technology and entertainment, syndicated exclusively for The Verge Customers once a week.
Last month, Netflix made the surprise decision to kill a key feature: Without any prior warning, the company removed the ability to cast videos from its mobile app to a wide range of smart TVs and streaming devices. Casting is now only supported on older Chromecast streaming adapters that did not come with a remote, Nest Hub smart displays, and select Vizio and Compal smart TVs.
This is a surprising departure for the company. According to an archived version of Netflix’s website, before those changes, Netflix allowed casting across a wide range of devices that officially supported Google’s casting technology, including Android TVs made by companies like Philips, Polaroid, Sharp, Skyworth, Sonic, Sony, Toshiba, and Vizio.
But the streaming service didn’t stop there. Before last month’s changes, Netflix offered “Netflix 2 Screen” casting functionality on a wide range of additional devices, including Sony’s PlayStation, TVs made by LG and Samsung, Roku TVs and streaming adapters, and many other devices. Basically, if a smart TV or streaming device was running the Netflix app, it probably also supported casting.
That’s because Netflix actually laid the foundation for this technology 15 years ago. In 2011, some of the company’s engineers were looking for ways to integrate people’s phones more tightly with their TVs. “Around the same time, we learned that the YouTube team was also interested in the same thing – they had already started some work on it [second] Screen use cases,” Scott Meurer, director of product management at Netflix at the time, said in 2013.
Both companies started taking cooperation and help from TV manufacturers like Sony and Samsung. The result was DIAL (short for “Discovery and Launch”) – an open second-screen protocol that formalized casting.
In 2012, Netflix was the first major streaming service to add a casting feature to its mobile app, which at the time allowed PlayStation 3 owners to launch video playback from their phones. A year later, Google launched its first Chromecast dongle, which took ideas from DIAL and incorporated them into Google’s own proprietary casting technology.
For some time, casting was extremely popular. Google sold more than 100 million Chromecast adapters, and Vizio even built an entire TV around casting, which shipped with the tablet instead of the remote. (It flopped. Turns out people still prefer physical remotes.)
But as smart TVs became more capable, and streaming services invested more heavily in native apps on those TVs, the need for casting gradually diminished. At CES, a streaming service operator told me that casting used to be an absolute requirement for their service. Nowadays, even among the service’s Android users, only about 10 percent are casting.
As far as Netflix is concerned, it’s unlikely the company will change its stance on casting. Netflix declined to comment when asked about shutting down the feature. My best guess is that casting was sacrificed in favor of new features like cloud gaming and interactive voting. Gaming in particular already involves multidevice connectivity, as Netflix uses phones as game controllers. Adding casting to that mix may prove too complicated.
However, not everyone has given up on casting. In fact, the technology is still gaining new supporters. Last month, Apple added Google Cast support to its Apple TV app on Android for the first time. And in the past two years, both Samsung and LG have included Google’s casting technology in some of their TV sets.
Neha Dixit, Google’s Android Platform PM, says, “Google Cast remains an important experience we’ve invested in – bringing seamless content sharing from phone to TV, whether you’re at home or staying in a hotel.” “Stay tuned for more to come this year.”
Google’s efforts are getting some competition from the Connectivity Standards Alliance, the group behind the Matter smart home standard, which has developed its own Matter Casting protocol. Matter Casting promises to be a more open approach to casting and in theory allow streaming services and device makers to bring second screen use cases into their apps and devices without having to make deals with Google.
Tapas Roy, VP of Amazon Device Software and Services, whose company is a major supporter of Matter and its Casting technology, says, “We have been a long-time proponent of using open technology standards to give customers more choices in terms of how they use their devices and services.” “We welcome and support media developers who want to build an open standard with an implementation of Matter Casting.”
However, support has been limited so far. Fire TV and Echo Show displays remain the only devices to support Matter Casting, and Amazon’s own apps were the only devices to use the feature for a long time. Last month, Tubi jumped on board by adding Matter Casting to its mobile apps.
Christopher LaPre, technology strategist at the Connectivity Standards Alliance, admits that Matter Casting still hasn’t translated into a runaway hit. “To be honest, I have a Fire TV and I never used it,” he says.
In addition to the lack of available material, LaPre also believes that miter casting is a victim of brand confusion. The problem: TV makers have started incorporating Matter into their devices to let consumers control smart lights and thermostats from the couch. Because of that, a TV that bears the Miter logo does not necessarily support Miter Casting.
However, LaPre also believes that Matter casting could get a boost from two new developments: Matter recently added support for cameras, which adds a new kind of home content that people want to cast. And the consortium is still working on taking casting beyond the screen.
“Audio casting is something we’re working on,” Lapre confirms. “A lot of speaker companies are interested in it.” There are plans to launch Matter Audio Casting later this year, at which point device makers, publishers and consumers can give video casting another look.
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