AllCast is an app that lets you stream videos, music, photos, or other content from an Android phone to a TV. You can use it with just about any TV connected to a Roku, Apple TV, WDTV, Xbox, or some other Samsung or Panasonic Smart TVs or devices with DLNA renderers.

Now AllCast also has official support for Google’s Chromecast, which means that with a $35 device you can beam all sorts of content from your phone or tablet to your TV.

allcast

AllCast developer Koushik Dutta actually created the app with the Chromecast in mind. But it was developed before the official Chromecast SDK was released, so for a while it supported just about every major media streaming device except the Chromecast.

Now that there’s an official Google Cast SDK, Dutta says it only took about 20 minutes to add Chromecast support.

Google originally positioned the Chromecast as a device that lets you stream music, videos, and other content from the internet. You can use your phone, tablet, or PC as a remote control, but content actually comes straight from online services such as Netflix, YouTube, or Hulu Plus. That way you can turn off your mobile device or surf the web, play a game, or do just about anything you’d like without interrupting the media playback.

AllCast works a little differently by letting you stream content from your device’s storage. That means you can show home videos (or downloaded videos) by streaming them over your home network without uploading them to the internet first.

You can also use the app to stream content from Dropbox or Google Drive to your TV.

There’s a free version of AllCast, but it has a 1 minute viewing limit. If the free version works and you want to use the app to stream longer videos, AllCast Premium is available from the Play Store for $4.99.

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5 replies on “AllCast updated: Streams anything from phone to Chromecast”

  1. I have a Desktop I that has all my media files (MKVs). I use Videostream to stream it directly through Chromecast. It’s free, it’s easy, and so far has been working flawlessly. I have it plugged into the back of my Xbox One. I tried using Allcast to stream files directly from my tablet (samsung Tab), but it’s extremely flawed. To me, Videostream is the best option thus far. You can download the app on your tablet and use it essentially as a remote to play and pause the movie.

  2. I downloaded AllCast on Nexus 7 II and it indeed casts pix and bids from my tablet storage. But he do turn it off????? If I just switch my TV to regular broadcast reception, whatever I viewed last on AllCast is still there when going back to Chromecast mode, unless I turn the TV completely off first. There’s no “stop casting” button?????

  3. Can someone enlighten me? I have a bunch of MKV’s on a nas. Can use an Android phone/tablet to make the Chromecast play the MKV files?

    And then shut off the tablet and the Chromecast continues to play?

    A lot of people say that the screen mirroring feature on a desktop chrome browser is great for playing local media, but that’s such poor quality it’s not worth it.

    1. Yes you can stream from your NAS, but its going to need to convert the MKVs to MP4 to be compatible.

      I would choose PLEX, it does the job better than any alternative I have found. By doing the job I mean organizing your library and converting MKV to MP4 without much noticeable loss.
      Just make sure to up the bitrate in the Plex mobile app, before streaming to the chrome cast.
      There is even a PLEX app avilable that runs natively on most NAS devices. The only downside is that transcoding can be a bit intensive for the lightweight CPU found in your run of the mill NAS.

      After you start the stream, you can power off your tablet if you like.

    2. Yes you can. The following has been tried with a windows 7 with the latest chrome installed.

      I also have quite a collection of movies in MKV format, and the way to play it is:
      -Install Google Chrome Browser on your PC
      -Install the Chromecast Plugin for Chromecast.
      With those two installed and running:
      -Open a blank tab in Chrome and drag and drop your MKV movie into the address bar.
      -Once the MKV starts to play in the Chrome tab, >Right next to the address bar, there will be a small icon to cast the tab to your Chromecast.
      -Cast the tab, make it full screen and then press “window” key plus “D” to see your desktop in the pc, in order for you to keep using it or anyone, while your TV will be playing the movie.
      The only drawback is: no subtitles/closed caption, unless they have been burned into the mkv file, but that is a completely different issue.

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