{"id":520184,"date":"2026-01-16T11:03:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T11:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/520184\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T11:03:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T11:03:10","slug":"casting-is-dead-long-live-casting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/520184\/","title":{"rendered":"Casting is dead. Long live casting!"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is Lowpass by Janko Roettgers<\/a>, a newsletter on the ever-evolving intersection of tech and entertainment, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week.<\/p>\n

Last month, Netflix made the surprising decision to kill off<\/a> a key feature: With no prior warning, the company removed the ability to cast videos from its mobile apps to a wide range of smart TVs and streaming devices. Casting is now only supported on older Chromecast streaming adapters that didn\u2019t ship with a remote, Nest Hub smart displays, and select Vizio and Compal smart TVs.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a stunning departure for the company. Prior to those changes, Netflix allowed casting to a wide range of devices that officially supported Google\u2019s casting technology, including Android TVs made by companies like Philips, Polaroid, Sharp, Skyworth, Soniq, Sony, Toshiba, and Vizio, according to an archived version<\/a> of Netflix\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

But the streaming service didn\u2019t stop there. Prior to last month\u2019s changes, Netflix also offered what the company called \u201cNetflix 2nd Screen\u201d casting functionality on a wide range of additional devices, including Sony\u2019s 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 most likely also supported casting.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because Netflix actually laid the groundwork for this technology 15 years ago. Back in 2011, some of the company\u2019s engineers were exploring ways to more tightly integrate people\u2019s phones with their TVs. \u201cAt about the same time, we learned that the YouTube team was interested in much the same thing \u2014 they had already started to do some work on [second] screen use cases,\u201d said Scott Mirer, director of product management at Netflix at the time, in 2013<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The two companies started to collaborate and enlist help from TV makers like Sony and Samsung. The result was DIAL<\/a> (short for \u201cDiscovery and Launch\u201d) \u2014 an open second-screen protocol that formalized casting.<\/p>\n

In 2012, Netflix was the first major streaming service to add a casting feature<\/a> 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 very first Chromecast dongle, which took ideas from DIAL and incorporated them into Google\u2019s own proprietary casting technology.<\/p>\n

For a while, casting was extremely popular. Google sold over 100 million<\/a> Chromecast adapters, and Vizio even built a whole TV around casting, which shipped with a tablet instead of a remote. (It flopped. Turns out people still love physical remotes.)<\/p>\n

But as smart TVs became more capable, and streaming services invested more heavily into native apps on those TVs, the need for casting gradually decreased. At CES, a streaming service operator told me that casting used to be absolutely essential for his service. Nowadays, even among the service\u2019s Android users, only about 10 percent are casting.<\/p>\n

As for Netflix, it\u2019s unlikely the company will change its tune on casting. Netflix declined to comment when asked about discontinuing 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 simply might have proven too complex.<\/p>\n

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 over the past two years, both Samsung and LG incorporated Google\u2019s casting tech into some of their TV sets.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoogle Cast continues to be a key experience that we\u2019re invested in \u2014 bringing the convenience of seamless content sharing from phones to TVs, whether you\u2019re at home or staying in a hotel,\u201d says Google\u2019s Android platform PM Neha Dixit. \u201cStay tuned for more to come this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Google\u2019s efforts are getting some competition from the Connectivity Standards Alliance, the group behind the Matter smart home standard, which developed its own Matter Casting protocol<\/a>. Matter Casting promises to be a more open approach toward casting and in theory allows streaming services and device makers to bring second-screen use cases to their apps and devices without having to strike deals with Google.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a longtime advocate of using open technology standards to give customers more choice when it comes to using their devices and services,\u201d says Amazon Device Software & Services VP Tapas Roy, whose company is a major backer of Matter and its casting tech. \u201cWe welcome and support media developers that want to build to an open standard with the implementation of Matter Casting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus far, support has been limited though. Fire TVs and Echo Show displays remain the only devices to support Matter Casting, and Amazon\u2019s own apps were long the only ones to make use of the feature. Last month, Tubi jumped on board as well by incorporating Matter Casting into its mobile apps.<\/p>\n

Connectivity Standards Alliance technology strategist Christopher LaPr\u00e9 acknowledges that Matter Casting has yet to turn into a breakthrough hit. \u201cTo be honest, I have Fire TVs, and I\u2019ve never used it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Besides a lack of available content, LaPr\u00e9 also believes Matter Casting is a victim of brand confusion. The problem: TV makers have begun to incorporate Matter into their devices to let consumers control smart lights and thermostats from the couch. Because of that, a TV that dons the Matter logo doesn\u2019t necessarily support Matter Casting.<\/p>\n

However, LaPr\u00e9 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 homegrown content people may want to cast. And the consortium is also still working on taking casting beyond screens.<\/p>\n

\u201cAudio casting is something that we\u2019re working on,\u201d LaPr\u00e9 confirms. \u201cA lot of speaker companies are interested in that.\u201d The plan is to launch Matter audio casting later this year, at which point device makers, publishers, and consumers could also give video casting another look.<\/p>\n

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