this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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aaaah that must be it. I'm actually a little uncertain how the chromecast works. I think it's a little smarter than I might have realised. I used to think it was kind of 'dumb', in a good way. I figured it couldn't really do anything but relay very specific formats of video through an HDMI interface. I assumed then that the wifi connection was just allowing it to receive a stream locally that a different device, a phone or laptop for example, was pulling from the internet and sending the chromecast's way. It seems like it actually works a bit like a browser in its own right and is actively requesting streams directly from the internet and all my controlling device is doing is basically sending it a URL. Is that more like it?
Exactly. An early (pre-2014) Chromecast bug was that it couldn't play private YouTube videos for that exact reason.
The Chromecast had no context for an "account" so a private YouTube video wouldn't play, even if "you" played the video.
I assume a concept of "account" exists now and it works fine.
I also don't know how it works in depth, but as I understand many (all?) YouTube/Google IP/DNS are hard coded into the YouTube Chromecast "app". As a result even if you had adguard or similar adjustments on you device or home network, the blocking would still fail.
That isn't to say it's impossible, just difficult. (And it's a classic cat and mouse game, so hard to say if it works right now.)
DNS based adblocking doesn't work at all on youtube. They serve it all from the same domains so you can't block the ads without blocking the site. (there are other methods ofc, this is just dns)