VidCast Bookmarklet Sends Web Video to Chromecast

What's This?

You can now send tons of web video to the Google's Chromecast dongle with the click of a button.

Image: Mashable, Meghan Uno

By Christina Warren2014-02-06 02:29:00 UTC

Google's Chromecast SDK has only been open to the public for a couple of days, but developers are already hard at work building new apps and tools. A new bookmarklet makes it easy for users to send web video from an assortment of sites directly to the Chromecast.

Google's $35 Chromecast already supports a plethora of services such as Netflix, Pandora, YouTube, Songza and HBO Go, but there are still tons of other video services on the web.

See also: Google Throws Open the Doors for More Chromecast Apps

The basic Chromecast extension for Google Chrome will send Chrome tab to the big screen — but the playback experience isn't always ideal.

That's why developer Paul Arterburn created VidCast, a bookmarklet that is designed to allow users to easily send video files from their web browser to the the Chromecast. Start playing a video file, click the bookmarklet and you're taken to a new tab. Once the file is loaded, click the play button and it will cast the file to your TV.

The VidCast Chrome bookmarklet

Arterburn, who is the co-founder of the startup Brandfolder.com, put the extension together in about four hours and showed off the results on Hacker News. The bookmarklet works with sites such as Vimeo, TED, FunnyOrDie, and lots of other websites that serve video. Facebook video works intermittently — I had issues on my machine — but Arterburn says that the current Chrome beta and Facebook work together just fine.

VidCast also works with the Plex media center software. Plex has a Google Chromecast app, but it requires a Plex Pass subscription. With this bookmarklet, you can send local files on your network directly to the Chromecast.

The only rule is that the video needs to be encoded in MP4, WebM or OGG formats. If you have video in AVI or other less-common formats, you're out of luck.

The bookmarklet is designed to look at a website to find its video file and then prioritizes the larger resolution. It works best in pure HTML5 players — so disabling Flash in Chrome can help send video files over that might not otherwise appear.

Arterburn praised Google's tools, noting that "the documentation [for the Chromecast SDK] was great." He also pointed out that Google charges developers just $5 to register a Chromecast serial number so they can publish apps. That's a very low barrier to entry, especially when compared to the $99 Apple charges to publish apps for iOS.

Right now, VidCast only works in Chrome — which is to be expected — but the Firefox team is discussing adding broader Chromecast support to its platforms.

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Topics: Apps and Software, chromecast, Dev & Design, Tech, vidcast