Just within days of making a splash by releasing AllCast Receiver to Google Play Store, Koushik “Koush” Dutta rolls out an update to the AllCast app. This time, it’s the AllCast sender that gets a new feature, in the form of support for Twitch.tv live streams.
With this new feature, users will be able to stream gameplay videos or live broadcast coming from Twitch to any compatible receiver, be it a Roku box, a Chromecast dongle, or Amazon’s shiny new FireTV device. Of course, with AllCast Receiver now available for all, you can even watch it on any other Android device, like a tablet or even another smartphone, maybe one that’s connected to a TV to make into an improvised Chromecast-like setup.
The new feature does require the Twitch Android app to also be installed on the same device as the AllCast sender app, not the receiver. Once that requirement is met, a new Twitch entry will appear in the side navigation menu of the app. For now, Koush says that only live feeds are supported, so watching past broadcasts is currently out of the question, though hopefully coming in the future.
There is also one somewhat indirect hurdle. AllCast, both sender and receiver, are free but the free sender app has limitations. Aside from ads, it also caps the playback of videos to 10 minutes at time, which will definitely detract from the Twitch experience. To be rid of those chains, one must purchase the AllCast Premium version, which currently costs $4.99.
Download: AllCast (Free), (Premium) on Google Play Store
Interesting.
I use Chrome Remote Desktop to connect to my PC from my phone and then cast a twitch tab to my Chromecast. Works pretty well.
Does the Allcast solution actually have advantages over this setup?