7 browser tricks to get the most out of your Chromecast - montgomerycourer1950

For $35, you might not expect more from Google's Chromecast. As IT turns out, this little TV dongle rear end do a hatful more than just stream video recording from Netflix and YouTube, or view web browser tabs on the freehanded screen.

Unlocking the true potential drop of your Chromecast, withal, requires a little ingenuity and close to deep excavation into the Chrome browser's Cast extension. With these hints, tips, and secrets for Chromecast, you'll constitute fit to meliorate cyclosis video public presentation, mirror your entire PC screen, display locally stored files, and more. Not invalid for a twist the price of few pizzas!

1. Reduce streaming quality to better video casting

That's the one you want. (Click to elaborate.)

Chromecast works best when it's streaming Netflix and YouTube videos directly from the Internet, with your headphone operating room pad of paper serving as a inaccessible controller. It's not quite as reliable when you're using the "Google Cast" Chrome extension to mirror browser tabs. Depending on the strength of your wireless network and the mightiness of your computer, you Crataegus laevigata have trouble casting videos from Chrome without the audio falling out of sync with the telecasting.

If this happens to you, chances are you can solve the problem aside turning down the video quality of the stream. Chink the Cast button in Chrome and and then click Options. Under Tab jutting character, select Canonic (480p). Video South Korean won't feel as sharp on your television, but hey, at any rate it'll embody watchable.

2. Keep on the full-screen video going

When you send a video from your phone or tablet to Chromecast, you're free to close the app and ut other things at the same clip. But when you'rhenium using the Chrome browser to sentry a video connected your TV, you must keep that video running in full screen at all multiplication, as an alternative it won't appear in instinct test on the television.

Fortunately, there's a workaround for Windows users: Scarcely make Altitude(+)Tab while the video is playing in pregnant screen. You'll find yourself outside of the picture window, while IT continues to occupy the whole screen along your goggle bo. To get back to the telecasting along your computer, click the lowborn Chrome window in the taskbar.

3. Stream local files from a Chrome tab

You can crop your local files with Chrome, which lets you play them on your Chromecast. (Click to enlarge.)

It turns out that Chromecast doesn't always stream its content straight from the Cyberspace. When casting a browser tab through Chrome along a Windows PC, Mac, operating room Chromebook, you put up afford local files in the browser, and they'll stream to the big screen over your topical anaestheti network.

To do this, you rear end enter file out:///C:/ in Chrome's address bar (operating theater (lodge://localhost/Users/yourusername on a Mackintosh), and then drag and deteriorate the file into Chromium-plate—or press Ctrl-O operating room Command-O—to show your system's file browser. Shoot the Cast button either before or after you choose the file you want, and Chromium-plate wish play the file as long as it's compatible with the file's codecs.

4. Mirror your entire PC display

Google didn't cause a big shot about this feature, but you can actually mirror your entire Personal computer display through Chromecast, not antimonopoly your open browser tabs. Click the Cast button in Chrome and look for the little drop-down arrow happening the far right, on the same phone line As "Cast this tab to…". Then detent Cast entire screen (empiric).

This is truly an experimental feature; it doesn't even support audio right now. Still, it could be useful for sharing exposure slideshows on your local anesthetic Microcomputer, or throwing PowerPoint slides onto the big screen straight from Microsoft Office.

Victimisation the Distant Desktop extension to accession your local PC is odd, but IT gets the job through with if you want to watercourse audio from desktop programs to your big screen.

The experimental awash-screen sharing described in a higher place is easy, but it doesn't support audio streaming, at to the lowest degree non yet. So what if you want to purpose Chromecast to playact tunes from iTunes, VLC, the Spotify desktop app, or another local media player? You could install a media host software program, so much as Plex, which volition allow you to play those files through and through a browser tab. But if you'd rather non set up anything newly, Google's own Inaccessible Desktop Web app can help.

Strangely adequate, IT's possible to unobstructed the reckoner you'atomic number 75 presently using as a tab within the Far Screen background app. Once you've lot up Remote Screen background (instructions here), undefendable the app and select your current computer from the My Computers list. The web browser tab itself will show an dateless cascade of windows, as the computer is essentially mirroring itself, only your local applications leave open risen without emerge. Sporting clear sure to turn soured the audio on your computer, or else it will play connected the computer and Chromecast at the same sentence.

Chromecast's hidden settings. (Click to enlarge.)

Hidden within the Cast extension's Options menu, you'll find extra streaming settings that command nuts-and-bolts things like the act rate and frame rate of casted tabs. To uncover them, right-click anywhere in the Options menu and select Inspect element. In the frame that pops up, expand the line that reads "quality == 'custom'."

On the expanded bank line, double-fall into place the text that reads "display: no" and erase that text edition. Look down septet lines further, for another "display: none". Double-penetrate and delete that school tex too. The new options should come out connected the page. (If you hot the Options window, you'll have to execute these steps again.)

There's in reality non more evidence that these settings work right now. You fanny looseness some with them, but adjusting things like frame pace and bit plac produced no pronounced changes for me.

7. Use the TeamViewer app as a makeshift remote

Using the TeamViewer mobile app to seize dominance of your PC Acts of the Apostles as an ad-hoc Chromecast control, albeit a moderately clumsy one.

The nice thing about Chromecast is that it lets you use your headphone or tablet as a inaccessible ascendence, but right now the number of apps you can command is limited. If you have a laptop computer or background on your local network, you can use the free TeamViewer app to launch a video from Chrome on your PC and cast off it to Chromecast.

TeamViewer acts as a remote control for your PC, so once the video is up and running, you can exit the app and living doing other things on your phone or tablet. It's not the prettiest method, but it works if you want to throw away, say, Hulu or Spotify's Vane player to your big screen and would preferably not lug your laptop into the living room. Just make sure to turn your Personal computer's audio off before you start cast.

Bonus! Help yourself to Chromecast's gorgeous wallpapers

That's pretty, even if it is only 720p resolution.

When Chromecast is on but not casting anything, it treats you to any lovely wallpapers, along with some text letting you know that it's ready to cast. It turns out those wallpapers are just unmoving on a Google web page. One member of the XDA-Developers forums grabbed them all and threw them into a Speed file for your viewing joy.

In time Chromecast should baffle more apps and eliminate the need for all these workarounds. Until then, making the virtually out of Google's Cast extension should help plug many of the gaps.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/453177/7-browser-tricks-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-chromecast.html

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