Casting Chrome tabs from your computer to your Google Chromecast couldn't be easier thanks to the dedicated extension, but getting local files from your computer to your TV isn't that easy. There are a couple of ways to do this.
The nightly versions of the popular VLC media app come with a new trial feature that allows you to share content from your computer to your TV screen. While this works on the Windows version, it's not visible on the Mac OS version, but we have some alternatives on how to cast local content from your Mac. To Chromecast You can cast any movie, music, or photo from your Mac's hard drive to the big screen. It's just a matter of knowing which apps and tools can do it. Read more.
Now, first a warning:these are trial versions of VLC, and as it says on the site, there is absolutely no support for using these versions, so you do so at your own risk, and they may be buggy. As noted by Ars Technica, this method won't always work and not all video files play well with the VLC Chromecast feature.
To get it working on your computer, after installing the nightly build compatible with your machine, go to Tools> Output Performance . There you should see your Chromecast listed, and you can select it to play your video through your TV. If you want to try this out for yourself, you can find VLC nightly builds here.
If you're nervous about using VLC for whatever reason, there's a workaround you can use with Chrome using the Videostream app for Google Chromecast that makes it easy to navigate to your computer's files and convert them to Chromecast.
How do you stream local content to your Chromecast? Let us know in the comments.
