PC to TV with Chromecast, No Chrome Browser

[olds]

Is it possible to play videos that are on my PC to a TV with Chromecast without running the video in a Chrome Tab?

 

[poofyhairguy]

Plex

 

[olds]

Plex

I am perplexed too. Don't you have to run the video in a browser?
I'd rather browse the computer on the Chromecast and play videos.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I am perplexed too. Don't you have to run the video in a browser?
I'd rather browse the computer on the Chromecast and play videos.

My bad. I should have used more words, kinda in a Twitter mode today.

You need to use the program Plex to achieve what you want. You run the Plex server app on your computer and load your media files into its library. Then once that is done you install the Plex app on the Chromecast and have it connect so that way it can stream any of those videos to the Chromecast:

https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201206866-Cast-from-Browser-or-Desktop

One thing to note though, the Chromecast isn't really meant to be a GUI in and of itself. By design it is meant to have other devices push content to it. Plex just pretties up and smooths out that process.

 

[olds]

My bad. I should have used more words, kinda in a Twitter mode today.

You need to use the program Plex to achieve what you want. You run the Plex server app on your computer and load your media files into its library. Then once that is done you install the Plex app on the Chromecast and have it connect so that way it can stream any of those videos to the Chromecast:

https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201206866-Cast-from-Browser-or-Desktop

One thing to note though, the Chromecast isn't really meant to be a GUI in and of itself. By design it is meant to have other devices push content to it. Plex just pretties up and smooths out that process.

Thank you, sir.

 

[poofyhairguy]

No problem, sorry again.

 

[JeffMD]

Plex is amazing as long as you have a little bit of content like a movies folder or just a couple of tv series. It is idiot proof enough that my parents can use it. However I ran into trouble when I decided to move my last 10 years of anime fansubs to a portable HD, this was clearly more than flex was setup to handle. So for this I used a chrome App called Videostream. A fairly simple interface, you just open a video file and it streams it to the chromecast.

It works fairly well and will try its best to stream the video rather than transcode it. I have found however that 264x video encoded using high profiles artifact like they are low bitrate on the chromecast. When you find a video like this you can force it to transcode which fixes the quality, but you have to use the quality selector to force it to 720p (or lower)

It is a pretty polished program but the developer forums are dead as hell, and updates/fixes at this point are rare.

 

[olds]

Got it set up last night and it worked great.
They don't have a kindle app though. I'll have to put android on the kindle fire, I like it's size better than my S5.

 

[sdifox]

Plex is amazing as long as you have a little bit of content like a movies folder or just a couple of tv series. It is idiot proof enough that my parents can use it. However I ran into trouble when I decided to move my last 10 years of anime fansubs to a portable HD, this was clearly more than flex was setup to handle. So for this I used a chrome App called Videostream. A fairly simple interface, you just open a video file and it streams it to the chromecast.

It works fairly well and will try its best to stream the video rather than transcode it. I have found however that 264x video encoded using high profiles artifact like they are low bitrate on the chromecast. When you find a video like this you can force it to transcode which fixes the quality, but you have to use the quality selector to force it to 720p (or lower)

It is a pretty polished program but the developer forums are dead as hell, and updates/fixes at this point are rare.

Plex can handle thousands of entries no problem. You do need to organise the files in the way plex expects.

 

[sdifox]

Got it set up last night and it worked great.
They don't have a kindle app though. I'll have to put android on the kindle fire, I like it's size better than my S5.

Fire is android, just customized. Humm plex app is free on amazon app store.

 

[olds]

Fire is android, just customized. Humm plex app is free on amazon app store.

Smart Plex?

 

[sdifox]

Smart Plex?

Not that... that is erp.. logo is supposed to look like an orange chevron on black. By plex, inc.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004Y1WCDE/ref=cm_sw_r_an_am_at_ws_us?ie=UTF8

 

[olds]

Doesn't give the the option of installing it to my Kindle. Just my Fire Stick (which I use at work not home) and "Cloud".

 

[sdifox]

Doesn't give the the option of installing it to my Kindle. Just my Fire Stick (which I use at work not home) and "Cloud".

You have pm

what version of fire do you have?

 

[olds]

You have pm

what version of fire do you have?

I believe it's the original Fire. Bought it in 2011.

 

[sdifox]

I believe it's the original Fire. Bought it in 2011.

Too old

need newer android, go cyanogenmod 10.