VLC’s developers have been working on Chromecast support for some time, and it’s finally available…sort of. It still hasn’t made it to the stable release of VLC yet, but if you run the bleeding edge nightly builds on Windows, you can stream video and audio files from VLC media player on your PC to your Chromecast.
Warning: this feature is unstable. Some people report it works perfectly for them, while others report it doesn’t and has problems with certain types of media files. Your experience may vary, but this feature is definitely in the early stages. Even so, it’s worth trying to see if it works for you–and it should only get better over time.
What You’ll Need
This feature is currently only available in the latest unstable “nightly” builds of VLC. At the time this article was written, the latest stable version of VLC (without support for Chromecast rendering) was VLC 2.2.8. You’ll need to download version 3.0 or later from the alpha build download page. At the time of writing, the feature is only available on the Windows release, in either the 64-bit or 32-bit version. You’ll need the correct version for your Windows installation—here’s how to check if you’re not sure.
Oh, and of course you’ll need a Chromecast device, or an Android TV device like the NVIDIA SHIELD (because they can accept Chromecast-standard streams, too), or a television that uses Android TV as its software (like one of Sony’s newer TVs). The Windows machine you’re using to stream needs to be on the same local network as your Chromecast device, wired or wireless.
How to Cast Video From VLC
Once you’ve downloaded and installed the appropriate version of VLC, you can get started. First, ensure your Chromecast and your television are on.
You won’t find a “Cast” icon in VLC–at least, not at the moment. To find your Chromecast, you’ll need to click Video > Renderer > Scan in VLC version 3.0 or Playback>Renderer>Scan in 4.0. If your Chromecast already appears in the menu, skip to the next step.
VLC will scan for nearby devices. You’ll then need to click Video > Renderer > Your Chromecast. VLC will connect to your Chromecast.
Open a video file in VLC and click the “Play” button. Use the Media > Open File menu or just drag and drop a video file from your file manager onto the VLC window.
After you try to play the video, you’ll see an “Insecure site” prompt. Click “View certificate” to view your Chromecast’s security certificate.
Click “Accept Permanently” to accept your Chromecast’s certificate.
The video file should immediately begin playing on your Chromecast after you agree, with your Chromecast streaming the file from the VLC player on your computer. Use the controls in the VLC window to pause, fast forward, rewind, and otherwise control playback.
When you try streaming in the future, you’ll just need to use the Video>Render or Playback>Render menu to scan and connect. Afterwards, you can play video files without accepting the certificate prompt again.
Again, this feature is still in development. When I tested it on my PC and SHIELD, the video was playing back with a lot of missed frames and audio de-synced by about a second. At the time of writing pretty much any other way to play back video would be better, for example, loading local media up on a flash drive and playing it back via a smart TV or set-top box.
Help, It Didn’t Work!
Having problems? This feature may just need some more time in the oven. If this VLC feature doesn’t work well for you at the moment, try another way to watch local video files on your Chromecast.
Specifically, there’s an easy way to stream your computer’s desktop video to a Chromecast using Google Chrome’s built-in casting tool. To start it, open Chrome to any website, then click the Chromecast icon, or click the Menu button and click “cast.”
Select the drop-down menu next to “Cast to,” then change the source from the Chrome tab to “Cast Desktop.” Then select your Chromecast or Android TV device.
Once Chromecast is broadcasting the whole screen, just open VLC and play your video in fullscreen. Note that, because Chromecast’s video streaming protocol is focused on speed rather than quality, the video quality will be much lower than in the steps above.
If you’d like to downgrade back to a stable version of VLC, visit VLC’s homepage, download the current stable build, and install it.
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