9. Viewing and Listening to Photos, Videos, and Music

In this chapter, you find out how to view and listen to various types of media files on your Chromebook.

Many people use their computers and tablets to view and listen to a variety of media files—photos, music, and videos. Not surprisingly, you can use your Chromebook as a photo viewer and media player, as long as you work within Chrome’s storage and file format limitations.

That is, you have to figure out some way to store large media files not on the Chromebook itself—or stream your audio and video over the Internet, in real time. And you have to make sure that all your media files are in a format that is supported by Google Chrome.

1. Insert the external storage device into your Chromebook.

2. When File Manager opens, open the folder for the external storage device and navigate to the folder where the photos are stored.

3. Click the image file you want to view, or select the item and click the Open button. The selected image opens in Chrome’s photo viewer.

4. Mouse over the viewer to see the navigation controls. Click the right arrow to advance to the next photo, or the left arrow to display the previous photo.

5. Click the Slideshow button to display all the photos in the folder in a full-screen slideshow.

6. Click the Delete button to delete the current picture.

7. Click the X at the top-right corner of the window to close the photo viewer.

1. Open the picture you want to edit in Chrome’s photo viewer.

2. Mouse over the picture and then click the Edit button to display the editing controls.

3. Click Auto-fix to apply an automatic fix to the picture.

4. Click Left to rotate the picture 90° counterclockwise.

5. Click Right to rotate the picture 90° clockwise.

6. Click Crop and then drag the corners of the crop box as needed. Press Enter when you’re done.

7. Click Brightness and then adjust the Brightness and Contrast sliders. Your changes are saved automatically.

8. Click the Edit button to exit photo editing mode.

1. Open the Chrome browser, go to picasaweb.google.com, and log in with your Google account.

2. Click the Upload button to upload new photos.

3. Your photos are organized into albums. Click an album’s thumbnail to view the contents of that album.

4. Click a picture’s thumbnail to view that picture.

5. To share the contents of the current album, click Actions, Album Properties to display the Edit Album Information pane. Click the Visibility button and select either Public on the Web or Limited, Anyone with the Link.

6. Click the Save Changes button.

As with viewing photos, your Chromebook’s storage limitations makes it difficult to store large numbers of music files internally. Your better bet is to transfer the desired music files to a USB memory device and then insert that device into your Chromebook. You can then listen to the files stored on the USB device, using Chrome’s Audio Player.

Note, however, that Chrome’s Audio Player does not support all types of music files. It’s compatible with the popular MP3 audio format, but not with Apple’s .aac or Microsoft’s .wma formats. So if you have your files in an iTunes library, for example, you first need to convert them to MP3 format to listen to on your Chromebook.

1. Insert the external storage device into your Chromebook.

2. When File Manager opens, open the folder for the external storage device and navigate to the folder where the MP3 files are stored.

3. Click the music file to which you want to listen. Alternatively, you can select the file and then click the Listen button. The Audio Player opens and starts playback.

4. Click the Pause button to pause playback; to resume playback, click the Play button.

5. Click the X at the upper-right corner to close the Audio Player.

1. Open File Manager and check those music files you want to include in the playlist.

2. Click the Listen button in the Preview pane to open the Audio Player and start playback of the first song in the playlist.

3. Click the Pause button to pause playback; to resume playback, click the Play button.

4. Click the Next Track button to advance to the next song in the playlist.

5. Click the Previous Track button to listen to the previous song.

6. Click the Playlist button to view the entire playlist. The Audio Player pane expands to display all tracks in the playlist.

To this end, Google offers the Google Play music service, which enables you to stream your own music back to you over the Internet. You can upload the favorite tracks from your personal music collection and then play them back from any web browser—including the Chrome browser on your Chromebook. You can upload and listen to up to 20,000 individual tracks, all for free.

Unfortunately, you can’t upload music directly from your Chromebook to Google Play. Instead, you need to have your digital music stored on a Windows or Mac PC, and then use that machine for uploading. You’ll first need to install Google’s Music Manager application on your PC; go to play.google.com/music/listen and click the Upload Music button. You can then select which files to upload to your Google Play music library.

1. Launch the Music Manager app from your Windows or Mac PC and select the Upload tab.

2. Click the Add Folder button and then browse to and select the folder where you store your digital music.

3. Click the Upload button to upload all the tracks in this folder.

4. Check the Automatically Upload Songs option if you want to automatically upload new tracks you add to this folder.

1. Click Apps in the Launcher and then click Google Play Music. Alternatively, open the Chrome browser and go to play.google.com/music/listen. Google Play opens in the Chrome browser.

2. Use the navigation sidebar to select what you want to listen to—Songs, Artists, Albums, Genres, or specific playlists.

3. Select the playlist, album, or songs you want to listen to. (Hold down the Ctrl button to select multiple tracks.)

4. Click the Play button to begin playback.

5. Click the Shuffle button to play your selections in a random order.

1. Insert the external storage device into your Chromebook.

2. When File Manager opens, open the folder for the external storage device and navigate to the subfolder where the video file is stored.

3. Click the video file you want to view. Alternatively, select the video file and click the Watch button. The video begins playback in the Media Player window.

4. Mouse over the video to display the transport controls.

5. Click the Pause button to pause playback; to resume playback, click the Play button.

6. Click the Fullscreen button to view the video full screen on your desktop.

7. Drag the slider to the right (forward) or the left (backward) to advance to another section of the video.

8. Click the X at the top-right corner to close the Media Player window.

1. Open the Chrome browser, go to www.hulu.com, and sign into your account.

2. Search or browse for the program you want to watch. In many instances, you have the option of accessing complete seasons or individual episodes.

3. Click the thumbnail of the program you want to watch. Playback begins.

4. Mouse over the browser window to display the playback controls.

5. Click the Full Screen button to view the program full-screen on your desktop.

6. Click the Pause button to pause playback; click the Play button to resume playback.

7. Use the playback slider to advance through the program.

1. Click the YouTube button in the Chrome Launcher, or use the Chrome browser to go to www.youtube.com. The YouTube home page displays.

2. Click the Sign In button to sign into your account.

3. Browse or search for a video you want to watch.

4. Click the video’s thumbnail to begin playback on a new page.

5. Click Pause to pause playback; click Play to resume playback.

6. Click anywhere on the red slider to move to a different place in the video.

7. Click the Full Screen button to view the video full screen.