If you’ve ( legally, of course) downloaded a
bunch of movies to your laptop, and now
want to watch them on your TV, then the
easiest way to do this is to use a HDMI
cable to connect the two. But this is not
always convenient, and besides, maybe
you’ve ( again, legally) got a bunch of
films on your phone. Most phones don’t
come with HDMI ports to connect to your
TV, and while your phone might support
Miracast, there’s a good chance that your
TV will not.
That’s where Wi-Fi connected streaming
devices like Google’s Chromecast come
into the picture. The Chromecast was
launched nearly two years ago
internationally, and finally launched in
India last December, priced at Rs. 2, 999.
The Chromecast is great if you have a lot
of online video content that you want to
stream - in fact, if you buy a Chromecast
from Google, you get 20GB of data usage
per month free on Airtel broadband for
three months, and a two-month
subscription to Eros Now, which has a lot
of Bollywood content. It’s not ideal for
streaming content from your PC to the TV
though; you’ll need to install and set up
something like a Plex to do that
effectively.