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Chromecast Tricks

As a participant in the Android ecosystem and committed early-adopter I was quick to order a Chromecast when they were introduced in 2013. Sadly, our older Sharp Aquos HDTV lacked the input switching to make the little dongle convenient in my intended application. Since then I’ve struggled to find a use for the little guy.

This week I stumbled upon a new use case for the Chromecast…digital signage! This was inspired by a couple of apps for Chromecast I found in the Play store; Big Tweets and Countdown.

Both of these apps would have been tremendously useful in my past life. I surely would have used them in staging trade show presentations.

Big Tweets cycles through a tweet stream with a selection of nice graphic themes. It even allows custom themes for the graphically handy. Just plug it into a monitor or HDTV and set it up via an Android device. No keyboard or mouse. Low power. Reliable. Lovely.

Since I don’t get involved in staging trade show presentations anymore I thought that it could still be used to integrate tweets into a VUC call. Just plug the wee Chromecast into my HDMI capture card and use it as a video source for Wirecast.

Here’s an example loop recorded using the #cluecon hash tag as a search parameter.

Big Tweets is the easiest way I have ever found to put a Social media feed into a video production. It’s awesome!

Next up is Chromecast Countdown. As the name suggests, it’s a countdown clock for your HDTV. Perhaps not as exciting as Big Tweets, but it’s genuinely useful nonetheless.

Chromecast-Countdown

I’ll close by offering a link to a story at The Enquirer that offers the Top 10 Google Chromecast Apps You Should Install.

What novel things do you do with your Chromecast? Leave a comment and let me know.

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