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[gerard.boterman]

Why is it still not possible to stream MP3 music and MP4 music video clips from my PC directly to a TV with Chromecast?
I love the interface of this program, but simply cannot use it for streaming. I do not want to use android, just my Windows 7 PC.
Any suggestions?

[RoderickGI]

So I assume that your Windows 7 PC isn't connected directly to your TV and DAC/Amp/Receiver?
You want to run MC on a Windows 7 PC and cast the output directly to your TV, to both show Video and play Audio on the TV?

Do you have a smart TV that is capable of acting as a DLNA renderer?
Is your TV connected to your home network?

If so, you can just stream your MC content to your TV using DLNA. No need for a Chromecast device to do that.

If you don't have a smart TV, on the network, and capable of acting as a DLNA renderer, then you could buy a cheap Intel PC on a stick and send MC content to that. Okay, I'm not completely sure about that one, as you would need a DLNA renderer on the stick, or to be running MC on it, I would guess, and that may not work well.

But since you don't want to buy in to Android, and probably equally don't want to get an iDevice involved, DLNA is probably your best solution.

But there are so many connectivity solutions now. If you want to cast from Windows or a Windows Phone to your TV, then Miracast is a possibility. You can buy a Miracast dongle to use in a similar way to the Chromecast. Android can also use Miracast. Or if you use an iPhone, you can just Airplay to your PC running Airserver.

But really, I am getting ahead of myself.

What are you actually trying to do, what is your PC, how is it connected to whatever it is connected to now, and what is it connected to, what content do you want to stream, just local files that MC knows about, or what???

Also, there have been a few posts about such setups. You may find what you want to know with a search. Just make sure before you do any buying that you check what resolutions, frames rates, video and audio formats, are supported, and what the hardware and software prerequisites are. Check carefully what your PC and TV are capable of.

[AndrewFG]

Indeed.

If the TV is younger than ca. 4/5 years old, you should certainly be able to push MP3 tracks from MC it to via UPnP / DLNA.

[RussellS]

I looked into this when the Chromecast was first released in the UK and I bought a couple thinking that they would serve my needs. However, it quickly became apparent that they would not. The problem is not with JRiver Media Center but the fact that the Chromecast is not a DLNA device. It uses a proprietary system to stream content. There is software that will stream to the Chromecast which I did use for a short time but it was a bit clunky and I spent more time trying to get a video file to stream to it than actually watching it.

I eventually gave up on the Chromecasts and I don't think either of them have been used for about a year. I Eventually replaced the Chromecast in our bedroom with a cheap Android TV box (with Android removed and flashed with Linux/Kodi) which has proved very good and much more user friendly.

You have to bear in mind that the Chromecast is sold cheaply by Google to draw you into their eco-system so that they can make the real money from streaming content to you. They have no interest in you streaming your own content that you already own because they make no money from it. I also understand that the Amazon FireTV Stick is the same in not supporting DLNA for the same reason although I believe there are some workarounds.

[Trumpetguy]

In my experience, using DLNA is slow and difficult to use directly on my Panasonic, 2 year old TV. Connection time is horrible and navigating is worse.

What works for me is to stream video contents from Plex server to the Chromecast. It is fast, 95% or higher reliability (I think the chromecast sometimes looses WIFI connection), and you can choose any audio and subtitle track you want***. It skips well, and remembers where to start playing your partially watched movie. Sorting and browsing using Plex remote on my Android is a pain however, I haven't found any way to group contents in genre, media contents or other.

What doesn't work is to use JRiver remotes like eos to do the same thing. It is not reliable, meaning it suddenly drops the connection (literally every time so I stopped using it), you cannot change audio track (prerequisite for non-English speaking kids most of the time) and you cannot turn on/off subtitle (I think).
Haven't tried the new version of Gizmo yet, but as far as I remember, you cannot choose audio track there either.


***Devs: This is a functionality that would be killer in eos, JRemote, Gizmo...

[imugli]

Have you tried using webgizmo in chrome and casting it from there?

If you have server functionality turned on in Tools > Options > Media Network, you can access the server from [your.server.ip]:52199/Gizmo and try casting the output.

I don't know whether it will work or not, but worth a shot...

[AndrewFG]

In my experience, using DLNA is slow and difficult to use directly on my Panasonic, 2 year old TV. Connection time is horrible and navigating is worse.

UPNP has two modes "pull" and "push" (Play To). It sounds like you are describing pull. And it certainly is a pain navigating a large library on a TV using pull. So try using MC to push to the TV instead. That way you can use MC to navigate and create playlists which you push to the TV.

[Trumpetguy]

UPNP has two modes "pull" and "push" (Play To). It sounds like you are describing pull. And it certainly is a pain navigating a large library on a TV using pull. So try using MC to push to the TV instead. That way you can use MC to navigate and create playlists which you push to the TV.

I'll try one of these days, but my TV would only support file listing type of navigation anyway, so it is not really appealing. And my files are distributed all over the place, and...

What I was trying to say was that Plex, even with its shortcomings on metadata, audio quality, and video quality is still (so far) the only real world alternative in our living room. In the home theater, JRiver of course leads by a mile or two, but upstairs, Plex remote client functionality trumphs with good margin. And my wife is comfortable using it. On the side - Webgizmo is no real alternative from a mobile device remote.

I would be really happy using any JRiver mobile device remote (eos, gizmo, JRemote) if these things actually worked:
- Chromecast connection was stable, and with faster connection time (here also Plex is much faster, and looses connection only rarely).
- Video playback did not suddenly stop, almost every time.
- Possible to choose audio track, either during playback or on a separate screen showing metadata before hitting Play (I like how Plex does it).
- Possible to choose subtitle

[~OHM~]

In my experience, using DLNA is slow and difficult to use directly on my Panasonic, 2 year old TV. Connection time is horrible and navigating is worse.

any chance your tv has a ethernet connection and you can simply run a cable, this worked great for me on a LG that was dropping wifi because I had to many files.

yesterday we bought a samsung ultra hd tv and it has had no problems with wfi dlna even with 3 phones and 4 tablets using wifi along with 3 other wired tv's for dlna.

also am investigating the amazon fire tv stick to see if it can make  a dumb tv use dlna using MC as the media server

[Trumpetguy]

Ethernet cable is on my long term todo list, it will be a lot of work to do properly. Only WiFi now.

[AndrewFG]

I'll try one of these days, but my TV would only support file listing type of navigation anyway, so it is not really appealing. And my files are distributed all over the place, and...

It sounds like UPNP push is exactly what you need. What model is your TV? (You can check its capabilities here http://www.dlna.org/products )

[Trumpetguy]

But like the OP states: Love JRiver (and its remotes user interfaces), and would really like to see a good way to do chromecast of different media, and preferably using Android mobile remote. Not e.g. use my TV's user interface.

[AndrewFG]

Ok. Just moan. Don't try anything..

[Trumpetguy]

Ok. Just moan. Don't try anything..

lol, we all do what we are best at. I have put your suggestion on my todo-list, just so you know.

[RoderickGI]

But like the OP states: Love JRiver (and its remotes user interfaces), and would really like to see a good way to do chromecast of different media, and preferably using Android mobile remote. Not e.g. use my TV's user interface.

I think you are missing the point that when you PUSH media to a TV acting as a DLNA renderer from MC, you do not use your TV's user interface at all. You just select your TV under Playing Now as the zone to play to. You still get to keep the full MC User Interface on whatever PC you are pushing media from, be that a MC Server or Client. MC acts as the DLNA Controller. Your TV acts as the DLNA Renderer. The MC Server, which may be a separate PC, acts as the DLNA Server.

You only get stuck with your TV  file listing type of navigation when you PULL media to your TV, which would be acting as a DLNA Controller and Renderer in that case. In that situation the MC Server is acting as a DLNA Server.

Also, while DLNA can be a pain in the ...., the most likely reason for pauses and dropouts, or poor playback, is probably your wireless network. The network doesn't have to dropout, just slow considerably, for MC or any streaming software to be forced to buffer some data.

[Trumpetguy]

Roderick,  you are totally right I missed that point, thanks! Now there's two items on my todo-list. Finally get around to install that cat5 or 6, and go a bit more indepth on dlna, which I haven't really bothered with before.

[imugli]

Why is it still not possible to stream MP3 music and MP4 music video clips from my PC directly to a TV with Chromecast?

I must be missing something...

You have the mp3 and mp4 files on your computer (or in your library) and you want to send them to your chromecast (not pushing from MC to your TVs built in DLNA renderer, nor pulling from your TVs DLNA interface). No interactions with your TVs DLNA interface at all (if in fact it has one).

> Install Google Cast extension in Chrome
> Ensure media networking is turned on in MC
> Go to [yourserverip]:52199/gizmo in Chrome
> Select the video / music file from the library
> Cast the tab to your ChromeCast using the Google Cast extension. 

Does this not work? I don't have a Chrome Cast, but I don't see why it wouldn't...

[RoderickGI]

I suspect you are right Imugli, and that would work.

But I think this thread is a solution (Chromecast) looking for a problem, when one doesn't actually exist.

[Trumpetguy]

I think you are missing the point that when you PUSH media to a TV acting as a DLNA renderer from MC, you do not use your TV's user interface at all. You just select your TV under Playing Now as the zone to play to. You still get to keep the full MC User Interface on whatever PC you are pushing media from, be that a MC Server or Client. MC acts as the DLNA Controller. ....

I missed one point from this post as well, where it says that I would need to push from an MC client on a PC (or Mac, I guess). I have tried that, and it works just fine. But right now I am trying to find a mobile remote solution (Android). Using a PC is just too time consuming, or the computer running the client is not available at the given moment. I can run down to the basement and run the show from there (and I have done, sometimes). But you get the picture, what I would really like working is the possibility stream video contents using any of our family's mobiles. Start a movie (with the right audio track), re-start from where it was left off yesterday afternoon. Adjusting volume. And all this without leaving the kitchen while preparing dinner.

And to repeat myself...I accomplish all this with plex, but not with any JRiver tech. I do see an improvement potential for JRiver here.

[AndrewFG]

You can use a tablet to browse the MC library and control it. And this means you can command MC to push to several different DLNA renderers around your home. And you can issue those commands from anywhere in the home. Of course MC has to be running on a PC. However the PC can be entirely hidden and headless if you wish.

[RoderickGI]

I don't use any of the MC Android or iOS remotes so I can't talk from experience, however...

Have you looked at JRemote for Android? It seems you are aware of the JRiver remotes, so I guess you have.

I would expect JRemote to be able to do what you described. That is, act as a Controller to push media from a MC Server to a TV via DLNA, and then control Start/Stop/Pause/Volume.

MC itself should take care of the re-starting a movie from where it was left off yesterday, although I have a suspicion that JRemote doesn't currently support that. Selecting the correct sound track could also be troublesome from JRemote, but if it has already been selected for the movie, then MC should just play the previously selected sound track. It remembers such selections. Not ideal as you would need to check the soundtrack at the MC Server and/or set it to the correct one before playing upstairs. Then again, maybe JRemote does all that and more, I don't know.

But I hear you. I nearly selected Plex as my solution, over JRiver, and one of the major reasons it came close was its ability to stream from anywhere to anywhere, with support on lots of devices including TVs. In the end, for me, that wasn't a big enough requirement.

Anyway, investigate JRemote and the other Android remotes to see if any of them do what you want, if you haven't yet.

EDIT: I see AndrewFG has beat me to the punch line, with a slightly more direct answer! 

[Trumpetguy]

You can use a tablet to browse the MC library and control it. And this means you can command MC to push to several different DLNA renderers around your home. And you can issue those commands from anywhere in the home. Of course MC has to be running on a PC. However the PC can be entirely hidden and headless if you wish.

Appreciate  your suggestions, the trouble is - that I have tried all this already for years. My setup is like you describe, a 24/7 MC server running in the home theater, serving a small number of inhouse clients (and my office workstation). And the reason why I am moaning in this thread is that, with all due respect for the MC devs, none of their solutions work for pushing video contents to my Panasonic Viera plasma in our living room. This afternoon I tested Gizmo, eos and JRemote again on my android phone, and all of them pushed movies quite beautifully to my tv through our wifi. Looked really good and the movie started after just a few seconds. So far so good. But here's the thing: Skipping does not work. Touching the time bar always makes the movie start playing from the beginning. Which means starting where it left off yesterday doesn't work. And then you have the list I mentioned previously: No choice of audio track, and not possible to control subtitles.

I am honestly quite surprised none of these things seem to be an issue to more users. But as long as they aren't, they don't get the attention needed to be changed, made or fixed.  

And it keeps me stuck on the Plex track as a living room solution. And that is not ideal. Plex does not - to put it mildly - provide a very good gui experience on the remote.

[Trumpetguy]

Have you looked at JRemote for Android? It seems you are aware of the JRiver remotes, so I guess you have.

Yes, as I wrote above, have been using eos, Gizmo and JRemote for a long time.

I would expect JRemote to be able to do what you described. That is, act as a Controller to push media from a MC Server to a TV via DLNA, and then control Start/Stop/Pause/Volume.

Yes, it does. And you can control everything you mention as long as the film is just playing. But any skipping makes it start all over again.

MC itself should take care of the re-starting a movie from where it was left off yesterday, although I have a suspicion that JRemote doesn't currently support that.

Yes, MC does that when you play using the MC app on the server or client machines. But not the android remotes.

Have you looked at JRemote for Android? It seems you are aware of the JRiver remotes, so I guess you have.Selecting the correct sound track could also be troublesome from JRemote, but if it has already been selected for the movie, then MC should just play the previously selected sound track. It remembers such selections. Not ideal as you would need to check the soundtrack at the MC Server and/or set it to the correct one before playing upstairs. Then again, maybe JRemote does all that and more, I don't know.

I think I tried this once, and it may have worked. It is a workaround. And I would have used it if no better (read: more functional) alternative was available.

[AndrewFG]

Try the more recent builds of MC in which they added support for time byte based seek on video (what you call "skip")..

[Trumpetguy]

I'm on the latest build 21.0.30. Time based seek works well when playing on my mobile device, but restarts from the beginning when seeking while pushing to the TV.

[AndrewFG]

Just for the avoidance of doubt, do you confirm that seek still does not work when you are pushing video? Or do you have the problem only when pushing audio? (IMHO the MC audio transcoding engine has a major latency problem when seeking in transcoded files, whereas the MC video transcoding engine is now pretty nifty on seek..)

[Trumpetguy]

I can confirm that the problem is for seek when pushing video.

I do think, but cannot actually confirm it here and now, that audio is ok.

[jkauff]

I'm on the latest build 21.0.30. Time based seek works well when playing on my mobile device, but restarts from the beginning when seeking while pushing to the TV.

I was having the same problem with the restarting of the video. Someone on the forum suggested these Advanced settings for the TV DLNA server in MC, and they solved the problem. Worked for JRemote operation, too:

AUDIO--
     Mode: Specified output format only when necessary
     Format: MP3 high bandwidth
Audio Advanced--
     Stereo downmix = enabled
     Volume leveling = enabled
     Sample rate: Same as source
     DSP Studio = nothing enabled

IMAGES:
     Mode: JPEG (1080 TV)

VIDEO:
     Mode: Original
     Format: H264-TS very high bandwidth stream auto fps
Video Advanced:
     Enable: DLNA; DLNAExtra; Enable bitrate Field; Present Caption Resources;
               Present Small Artwork; Present Subtitle Resources
    Empty values for Video MimeType Override & Video DLNA Override

[AndrewFG]

Enable bitrate Field;

Of all your settings, I think that the bit rate field may be the one most likely to have an impact on Seek. The reason is that the client renderer needs to convert a time-seek offset to an equivalent byte-seek offset in order for it to make a seek request.

Note: A client renderer would normally derive the bit rate from ContentLength and duration. But for reasons that I don't understand, MC often does not provide a proper content length, and in those cases the provision of bit rate directly would allow the renderer another way in.

[Hendrik]

If MC is capable of byte-seeking, it will also provide a Content-Length. Otherwise, it won't.
Note that support for byte-seeking requires one of the H264-TS, MPEG2-TS or MPEG2/DVD conversion types (which is the vast majority, but still worth mentioning) - or no conversion, but that limits the types of files that can be played.

[AndrewFG]

Notwithstanding what Hendrik says above, turning on the bit rate parameter might make all the difference in whether a renderer is able to execute a Seek or not. It probably depends on the renderer; some use content length and duration, some use bit rate, and some (like my own) use both (whichever is available)..

PS personally I cannot envision any cases in favour of not enabling bit rate..

[Trumpetguy]

If MC is capable of byte-seeking, it will also provide a Content-Length. Otherwise, it won't.
Note that support for byte-seeking requires one of the H264-TS, MPEG2-TS or MPEG2/DVD conversion types (which is the vast majority, but still worth mentioning) - or no conversion, but that limits the types of files that can be played.

So I just tested setting Video conversion to "MPEG2/DVD PAL" in Client Options on the server. Pushed video to mye Panasonic Viera P42GT60Y using JRemote. When tapping on an arbitrary location on the progress bar to skip, the movie re-started, as always. The same happened when converting to "h264 TS 1080p" (just to try another one), or when pushin original content. I have tried most of the other options earlier with the same result. All my videos are dvd or bd rips stored as .mkv.

So, am I doing something wrong?

[Trumpetguy]

Notwithstanding what Hendrik says above, turning on the bit rate parameter might make all the difference in whether a renderer is able to execute a Seek or not. It probably depends on the renderer; some use content length and duration, some use bit rate, and some (like my own) use both (whichever is available)..

PS personally I cannot envision any cases in favour of not enabling bit rate..

Is there a way to tune bitrate? I have been missing that option, and would love to learn how to do it in MC.

Our national television network's webplayer auto-tunes the bitrate based on your internet connection speed (user can force low bitrate). Plex gives you the possibility to set bitrate during playback, from very low to several Mbps, which is very convenient.

[AndrewFG]

The Enable bit rate option is just a switch that determines if MC will inform the renderer about the actual bit rate of the track or not. It is simply another fact like track title, artist, album, duration etc. that is included in the metadata sent to the renderer.

What you are talking about is something different, namely changing the audio pitch of the track. Simply changing the bit rate metadata value will certainly not change the pitch of the track. It will always play out at the sample rate actually defined in the audio encoder.

If you want to change audio pitch then I think that there is indeed a DSP algorithm for resampling a track to a different audio pitch. (But this might however exacerbate your Seek problem, since last time I looked at this MC was still not taking account of the DSP impacts on duration, bit depth, channel count, sample rate, content length etc. in the meta data that it passes on to the renderer..)

[Trumpetguy]

Sorry if I was a bit unclear about the bitrate thing, but no - I did not mean changing audio pitch. I was referring to the ability to change the total bitrate (i.e. the network bandwidth) of the media stream (audio+video). Sometimes 128kbps is what is possible (fortunately not often nowadays). Very often, fortunately, the LAN or WAN capacity is much higher, and can allow 2 Mbps transfer rate or even higher.

I guess MC is doing something like this by enabling different kinds of real-time media conversions when streaming to a client (e.g. "MPEG2/DVD PAL" or "h264 TS 1080p", which will have different bandwidth requirements), but having the possibility to adjust how much bandwidth MC can use when pushing media using the the remote would be convenient.

Did that make more sense?

[jkauff]

So I just tested setting Video conversion to "MPEG2/DVD PAL" in Client Options on the server. Pushed video to mye Panasonic Viera P42GT60Y using JRemote. When tapping on an arbitrary location on the progress bar to skip, the movie re-started, as always. The same happened when converting to "h264 TS 1080p" (just to try another one), or when pushin original content. I have tried most of the other options earlier with the same result. All my videos are dvd or bd rips stored as .mkv.

So, am I doing something wrong?

The original poster of these settings (sorry, but I didn't save his ID) felt that his deleting any values in "Video MimeType Override" & "Video DLNA Override" made the most difference for him.

[Trumpetguy]

The original poster of these settings (sorry, but I didn't save his ID) felt that his deleting any values in "Video MimeType Override" & "Video DLNA Override" made the most difference for him.

Being a bit thick here...sorry. Could you please explain what this means and where to do it?