Google’s Chromecast is one of the most popular digital media player available in the market. But one of the drawbacks that it had was that it could be controlled only via a smartphone or a laptop. Even if you want to pause a program for a few seconds, you need to open the laptop or go to the settings of the smartphone to do it. But Google seems to have quietly overcome this small yet significant problem. A recent update to Chromecast indicates that it is now possible to pause or restart playback video using the TV Remote control.
Although there has been no official word from Google, but tech buffs are speculating that control via TV Remote is possible now because of Chromecast’s use HDMI-CEC which is an extension of the HDMI protocol. It is HDMI-CEC that allows the TV Remote to interact with the Chromecast in the same manner as the remote interacts with a Blu-Ray player. The TV acts as a mediator and converts the infrared signals of the remote and sends it to Chromecast because the Chromecast doesn’t have an infrared player.
After the pause/resume button is pressed, the state of the video player is updated on the smartphone/laptop and you can resume/pause the video using these devices as you normally do. This feature was added to Chromecast in the latest 27946 firmware update. The feature works with the old remotes but it might not work for old TVs because old TVs do not support the HDMI-CEC protocol.
According to Chromecast users, the feature is working successfully for most apps like YouTube, WatchESPN, HBO Go etc. but there are certain apps like Netflix which are yet to support the same. It is worth noting that in some TVs the HDMI-CEC protocol is present but is switched off by default. It is possible to change this setting and here is the link on how to do it easily.
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