Gear Friday: Google Chromecast Ultra

Google Chromecast Ultra.

Google has refreshed its little Chromecast streaming video device, adding the Ultra moniker and 4K support, and also high dynamic range for content.

The last bit is kind of the missing link for 4K. It means you get not just much higher resolution than 720p and 1080p, but also heaps better colour reproduction for more life-like video.

All that high-res, high dynamic range goodness requires plenty of bandwidth to transmit. Google suggests your internet connection should be at least 20 megabits per second on the downstream, for the Chromecast Ultra to stream 4K video.

My VDSL2 connection runs at 50Mbps down and 23Mbps up currently, and coped well with streaming 4K video over the Ultra; note that you'll want to ensure either a good Wifi connection (use the 5GHz radio on the router for best throughput) or a wired Ethernet cable plugged into the ChromeCast Ultra for high-speed streaming to work.

You'll need a newish TV set too, of course, which can display not just 4K but the high dynamic range colour with 10 or 12 bits of information per hue; since the entertainment industry is paranoid about piracy, the HDMI port that the Chromecast Ultra plugs into must support Intel's High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection version 2.2, and 60 frames per second refresh rate - most new TVs do.

The Chromecast Ultra is small, a small black disc with 58mm diameter and 13.7mm thickness.

That's not all there is to the Chromecast Ultra though: there's a short HDMI cable sticking out of the device, and it needs power over a micro USB port too (an adaptor is supplied) so there will be wires to hide.

Setting up the Chromecast Ultra was dead easy: plug it into a suitable HDMI port on a TV, download the Google Home smartphone app (Android and iOS) which eerily enough finds the Chromecast Ultra before you join the device to your Wifi network, change a few settings if needed and it'll update itself to the latest software.

Being Google hardware, you're asked to add the Chromecast Ultra to your account with Big G, and then it's ready to stream.

Well, you use your phone to find for instance Netflix movies to "cast" to the TV, which is fairly straightforward.

Looking around for castable 4K content, Netflix it, ditto Walmart-owned Vudu which is US-only unless you faff around with a VPN, and of course, there are free YouTubes. Not an amazing choice, but it's getting better with time.

Quickflix is available, along with other streaming services and there's music via Google, Spotify and Pandora too.

Stick to the right side of the fence though, and the Chromecast Ultra is a handy and inexpensive media player with great quality.

To my eye, 4K looks amazing compared to 1080p, and I'd miss not having it. The little Chromecast Ultra did a great job of playing back 4K videos with no buffering or stuttering, and 1080p stuff looked pretty good too.

You pay more to get 4K support for the Chromecast though; the Ultra costs $109, whereas the standard 1080p capable streamer costs just $59.

Higher price notwithstanding, it's amazing that you can get high-quality 4K playback via such a small device.

A new 4K TV is more likely than not to have the streaming capabilities of the Chromecast Ultra without having to use a smartphone as the interface and remote, and it's easy play back locally stored content as well.

That's really the key to getting the most out of the Chromecast Ultra: you need to explore the third-party app ecosystem and find software that gets around limitations such as no local playback via Google Home for instance.

The problem is that many of the Chromecast streaming apps I looked at try to spam you with ads and I'd be surprised if they have the rights to the content they're serving up. Be careful where you go, in other words.

Stick to the right side of the fence though, and the Chromecast Ultra is a handy and inexpensive media player with great quality.