is Chromecast a must have piece of hardware?

[potatochobit]

is anyone using this?

 

does it play MKV and display subtitles properly?

 

I want to replace my laptops or HTPC and stream from my computer directly to the large TV

 

anyone know a way to stream videos from a NAS to a TV?

my roku cannot display any subtitles other than SRT which is a problem

Edited August 20, 2013 by potatochobit

[Wesstron]

Check my review of the PIVOS XIOS DS Media Play. Neat little device and with the right app (I suggest MX Player Pro), it plays MKV's without a hitch. I guess you watch Anime? Other than that any android box with a decent processor and at least 512MB RAM would do the job, again with the proper app. If you give me more details about what subs you use I could dig deeper in the matter lol

 

I can't really speak for the Chromecast, but If I get my hands on one I will definitely review it for you guys

[potatochobit]

blurays use SUP format to display subtitles

that is the current standard

 

alot of fansubs and such on the internet use SRT

that is a good format to make your own, but converting SUP to SRT is a PitA

 

windows media can play both of these fine and such,

but things like Roku using PLEX must render SUP, SUB/IDX subtitles in real time - because the roku does not support those subtitle formats

and that runs the host CPU at 100% which is very bad

 

something wireless would be cool that can display SUP

I have a long HDMI cable to run from my computer to the HDTV

but I would like something with a remote that can browse a windows home group or something to open files in a folder

 

I have not heard of PIVOS but I can take a look

[Wesstron]

The device itself supports SRT, SMI, SSA, ASS, IDX/SUB, and SUB file formats. Are you playing high bitrate videos? If so the XIOS might not be a first choice.

Now as far as SUP are concerned, are you converting/muxing your files or just getting them already made? I usually get my anime in 1080p MKV format with embedded subs and the XIOS plays them fine, so does my galaxy note 2.

Or you can build a small HTPC and get a remote for WMC.

[My_Inner_Fred]

Chromecast doesn't seem to support MKV files encoded with AC3, but it does support MKV files encoded with AAC. 

Here's what is supports: https://developers.google.com/cast/supported_media_types

 

I did read somewhere that it could stream MKV files off your google drive account but I'm not sure. In most cases people will try streaming a MKV file but it won't have audio. 
It seems to work fine with MKV files if your using PLEX along with it. Only real alternative is to convert the MKVs to MP4 which take a quality loss.

@wesstron 

You can play 1080p MKV anime files on your galaxy note 2 with no artifacting and lag?! I can't get my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T to play 10 bit 720p MKV animes without artifacting all over the place ever 2 minutes... 

[Wesstron]

Last series I watched was Soul Eater 1080p MKV, no problems whatsoever. I will pull out the file properties later just to check encoding and audio. The note 2 is a little powerhouse lol

[My_Inner_Fred]

Last series I watched was Soul Eater 1080p MKV, no problems whatsoever. I will pull out the file properties later just to check encoding and audio. The note 2 is a little powerhouse lol

 

Did you ever get the time to pull file properties?

[Wesstron]

Here is the info, sorry for the late reply

 

Codec: x264

Frame Rate: 23.976 fps

Scan Type: Progressive

Display Aspect Ratio: 16:9

Resolution: 1920x1080

Bit Depth: 8 bits

[Waco]

ChromeCast can't play local (network) files any more - keep that in mind.

[Andrewr05]

ChromeCast can't play local (network) files any more - keep that in mind.

Though i was just reading on Reddit the other day that it is only disabled because they wanted to ship it 100% functional.

Things may have changed since then?

 

http://www.muktware.com/5860/confirmed-chromecast-will-be-able-play-local-content-go-ahead-and-order-yours