Casting is dead. Long live the casting!

This is it Low corridor By Yanko Rutgersa newsletter about the ever-evolving intersection of technology and entertainment, published specifically for Edge Subscribers once a week.

Last month, Netflix made a surprising decision to do just that killing Key Feature: Without warning, the company removed the ability to stream 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 aren’t included with the remote, Nest Hub smart displays, and Vizio and Compal smart TVs.

This is a stunning departure for the company. Prior to these changes, Netflix allowed streaming on a wide range of devices that officially support Google’s streaming technology, including Android TVs made by companies like Philips, Polaroid, Sharp, Skyworth, Soniq, Sony, Toshiba, and Vizio, according to Archived copy From the Netflix website.

But the streaming service did not stop there. Before last month’s changes, Netflix also offered what the company called “Netflix 2nd Screen” streaming functionality on a wide range of additional devices, including Sony’s PlayStation, TVs made by LG and Samsung, Roku TVs and streaming adapters, and many others. Basically, if your smart TV or streaming device is running the Netflix app, it likely supports streaming as well.

This is because Netflix laid the foundation for this technology 15 years ago. Back in 2011, some of the company’s engineers were exploring ways to integrate people’s phones with their TVs more tightly. “Around the same time, we learned that the YouTube team was interested in pretty much the same thing — they were actually starting to do some work on (second) screen use cases,” Scott Mirer, Netflix’s director of product management, said at the time. In 2013.

The two companies began cooperating and seeking help from TV makers such as Sony and Samsung. And the result was Ask (short for “discover and play”) – an open second-screen protocol that formalizes the transmission process.

In 2012, Netflix was the first major streaming service to offer streaming services Add casting feature to its mobile app, which at the time allowed PlayStation 3 owners to play video from their phones. A year later, Google launched its first Chromecast dongle, which took ideas from DIAL and incorporated them into Google’s own casting technology.

For a while, casting was very popular. Google sold More than 100 million Chromecast adapters and Vizio have even built an entire TV around the cast, which ships with a tablet instead of a remote. (It failed. Turns out people still like physical remotes.)

But as smart TVs become more capable, and streaming services invest more in native apps on those TVs, the need for streaming has gradually decreased. At CES, one streaming service operator told me that casting was absolutely essential to his service. Nowadays, even among Android users of the service, only about 10 percent send.

As for Netflix, the company is unlikely to change its approach to casting. Netflix declined to comment when asked about stopping the feature. My best guess is that choice has been sacrificed in favor of new features like cloud gaming and interactive voting. Gaming in particular already includes the ability to connect to multiple devices, with Netflix using phones as game consoles. Adding cast to the mix can be quite complicated.

However, not everyone gave up acting. 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. Over the past couple of years, both Samsung and LG have integrated Google’s casting technology into some of their TVs.

“Google Cast continues to be a core experience we’ve invested in — providing the ease of seamless sharing of content from phones to TVs, whether you’re at home or staying in a hotel,” says PM Neha Dixit, head of Google’s Android platform. “Stay tuned for more to come this year.”

Google’s efforts face some competition from the Communications Standards Alliance, the group behind the Matter smart home standard developed its own material casting protocol. Matter Casting promises to be a more open approach to casting, in theory allowing streaming services and device makers to bring second-screen use cases to their apps and devices without having to cut deals with Google.

“We’ve long been an advocate of using open technology standards to give customers more choices when it comes to using their devices and services,” says VP of Amazon Device Software and Services Tapas Roy, whose company is a major backer of Matter and its casting technology. “We welcome and support media developers who want to build to open standards by implementing Matter Casting.”

But support has been limited so far. Fire TV and Echo Show devices remain the only devices that support Matter Casting, and Amazon’s own apps were the only ones to take advantage of the feature for a long time. Last month, Tubi also got on board by integrating Matter Casting into its mobile apps.

Christopher LaBrie, a technology strategist at the Communications Standards Alliance, acknowledges that Matter Casting has not yet become a huge success. “To be honest, I have Fire TVs, and I’ve never used them,” he says.

Besides the lack of available content, LaPré also believes Matter Casting is a victim of brand confusion. The problem: TV makers have begun incorporating the material into their devices to allow consumers to control smart lights and thermostats from their couch. For this reason, a TV with the Matter logo does not necessarily support Matter Casting.

However, LaPré also believes Matter Casting could get a boost from two new developments: Matter recently added support for cameras, adding a new type of local content people might want to cast. The consortium is also still working to take representation beyond screens.

“Podcasting is something we’re working on,” Labrie confirms. “A lot of headphone companies are interested in that.” The plan is to launch Matter audio casting technology later this year, where device makers, publishers and consumers can also give streaming video another look.