How to cast content from VLC to a Chromecast

I recently bought a projector to watch home theater . The video transmission via wifi from the projector works a bit “on foot pedals”, so to solve it I have connected a Chromecast. This way I have managed to improve the reproduction of videos and movies terribly, but for this I have had to look for a program that helps me send content from the PC to the Chromecast in a smooth way. The VLC player maybe?

One of the advantages of VLC is that in addition to being an open source program (and one of the best video players for Windows of all time), it has a very clean interface and a lot of advanced features, which makes it be very easy to handle once we know what we have to do. Can VLC Cast Videos to Chromecast? The answer is yes, although if we have no idea it may be difficult for us to find this option among all the settings available within the application.

How to stream videos from VLC to a device with Chromecast

To send videos over Wi-Fi from a PC to a Chromecast using the VLC player, we just have to follow these steps:

• Open VLC and play the video you want to broadcast.
• In the top options menu go to “Playback -> Processor”.
• In the processor options you will see all the available target devices. Select the Chromecast device.
• The content will automatically start playing on the Chromecast.

Keep in mind that in order to connect VLC with the Chromecast it is necessary that both the PC and the Chromecast are connected to the same Wi-Fi network .

Cast content from VLC to Chromecast on Android

In the case that we use the version of VLC for Android mobiles, the process is even simpler, since now the Chromecast function is perfectly integrated into the player:

• Open VLC and start playing the video you want to stream.
• Select the Chromecast icon that you will see in the upper right area of ​​the screen.
• Choose the Chromecast device as the destination.
• The content will automatically start streaming from the selected Chromecast device.

Possible problems with playback

When it comes to sending videos from VLC to the Chromecast I have encountered several obstacles. I have verified that with some videos the audio does not play on the Chromecast . After doing some research, I have discovered that on many occasions this is due to compatibility problems with AC3 audio codecs. In some cases, VLC itself takes care of converting the file format so that there are no problems in this regard, but sometimes the conversion is simply not possible and the videos are shown without sound.

To solve it we have two options:

• Use a video converterto change the file format, and from there modify the audio to MP3 format, which is much easier for the device to “digest”.
• Instead of using VLC, we will send the full screen of the PCto the Chromecast. The easiest way to do it is using the Chrome browser: just pull down the Chrome options menu and go to ” Send -> Fonts -> Cast Desktop ” and put the VLC video on full screen. Chrome will send both video and audio to the Chromecast without issue.

Another problem that I have encountered is that VLC does not display subtitles when casting content to the Chromecast. Although the subtitles are activated, VLC only limits itself to sending the video and audio, completely ignoring the .srt file with the subtitles. We can solve this by sending the complete desktop of the PC as we mentioned a little above, although I am still looking for a way to do it directly from VLC (if any reader knows how to do it, please do not hesitate to stop by the comments area ).

In short, streaming videos from VLC to a Chromecast device is really easy, although it is also likely that we will run into the odd roadblock from time to time. The key is knowing how to fix it when that happens. If you have any contribution or query, please do not hesitate to go through the comments area. We read in the next post!