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Chromecast Ultra- The First Chromecast to Support 4K and HDR10 & Dolby Vision through HDMI 2.0a

For a while, 4K streaming media players have been dominated by set-top box style products like the Roku 4, Amazon Fire TV (2015), and TiVo Bolt.  Stick style media players like Amazon's Fire TV Stick and Roku Streaming Stick only supported 1080p.  Even the recently announced Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote still only supports 1080p.

The things that everyone loved about Google's Chromecast products were the affordable price, small form factor, and ability to easily connect to various Google related products like YouTube, Chrome browsers, specific Android Apps, etc.  The main drawback has always been the lack of 4K support with the Google Chromecast (2015).

Now all that has changed with the recently announced Chromecast Ultra which has leapfrogged other streaming media sticks by being the first to support 4K, HDR10, and Dolby Vision which can then be viewed through your 4K HDR ready TV over HDMI 2.0a.  Even the recently announced Xiaomi 4K Mi Box (2016) still uses the set-top box form factor and supports royalty free HDR standards like HDR10 and HLG rather than Dolby Vision.

Out of all the mainstream streaming media players, the Apple TV (2015) is the only one that hasn't gone 4K so it will be interesting to see when Apple chooses the catch up with the rest of the herd.

Another new feature of the Chromecast Ultra is that for the first time Chromecast users have the option to connect Ethernet to their Chromecast Ultra through the micro-USB based Power Adapter.  Having Ethernet on your power adapter is very unusual but is a very smart way add Ethernet connectivity by using the same USB cable for both power and networking data.

Hopefully the Chromecast Ultra will spur YouTube to become more transparent about which 4K content is HDR ready.  

We look forward to testing the Chromecast Ultra when available.  Note at the time of this writing the Chromecast had live purchase links to the Google Store, Best Buy, and Walmart but pre-ordering was not yet possible.