Send a video to the TV, without re-encoding it
Frame Player hands your television the file itself and lets the set's own player decode it — at its own quality, with its own HDR. The window you were watching in becomes the remote.
Most ways of putting a computer’s video on a television either mirror the screen, re-encoding every frame on the way, or convert the whole file first and make you wait for it. Frame Player does neither. It serves the file over your local network and tells the television where to find it, and the television plays it with the same decoder it uses for everything else.
How to cast
- Open the video in Frame Player as usual.
- Press the cast button in the control bar. The panel lists the televisions it finds on your network, one row per set.
- Each row says what will happen to this file on that device before you pick it: Plays as it is, Prepared before it starts, or why it cannot play.
- Pick a row. The film continues on the television from where you were.
The cast panel. Each television says what will happen to this particular file on it, and the pointer is on the button that opens it.
While it plays, the player window is a remote control. The keys, the seekbar, chapters and the queue act on the television, and disconnecting hands playback back to the window at the position the set had reached.
Google Cast and DLNA
Frame Player reaches a television in one of two ways, and they do not play the same things.
| Compared | Google Cast | DLNA |
|---|---|---|
| Reaches | Chromecast, Google TV, sets with Chromecast built in | Many smart TVs and media players |
| Who decodes | The Cast receiver app on the device | The television’s own player |
| What plays as it is | MP4 and WebM with codecs the device supports | Whatever the television itself plays — often MKV included |
| When it cannot | The file is repacked first, video copied | Falls back to Google Cast when the set has both |
DLNA is the one that asks the least. A DLNA renderer is the television’s own media player, so a release the set already plays goes over untouched. Measured on a 4K LG set: a 6.3 GB HEVC Main 10 HDR10 MKV with E-AC-3 5.1 sound, with no preparation of any kind, seeking included.
Google Cast is narrower. The receiver plays a shorter list of containers than the same television can: MKV is not on Google’s list of supported media at all. So Frame Player works down a short ladder for each file:
- Play it as it is when the container and the codecs are ones the device takes. Nothing is prepared and nothing is written to disk.
- Repack it into MP4 when only the container is the problem. The video is copied, never re-encoded; the sound is copied when the device takes it and converted when it does not. A film is ready in about ten seconds, or about half a minute when the sound needs converting, and a repacked copy is kept so casting it again is instant.
- Say no, and say why, when the video itself is something the device cannot decode. There is no step that re-encodes a picture: on a 4K film it would be slower than watching it.
When a set speaks both, Frame Player uses DLNA if the television lists the file’s container as something it plays, and Google Cast otherwise. If a DLNA start fails anyway, it falls back to Google Cast by itself. The choice can also be pinned per television under the gear on its row.
Casting a torrent
A torrent that is still downloading can go to the television too. When the file can play on the set as it is, the television is fed from the same stream as the player, with the pieces it is about to show fetched first. When the file has to be prepared first, the row says it needs the whole file, because a file cannot be repacked before it exists.
What leaves your computer
Casting sends a file across your network, so it is built to send that file and nothing else.
- Nothing runs until you open the panel. The search for televisions runs only while the cast panel is open, and the file server starts when you pick a device and stops when you disconnect.
- The server answers for one file, behind a random address. It never lists a folder, and the address stops working when the session ends.
- Private folders stay private. A file in a folder you marked private is sent without its name: neither the network nor the television’s screen shows it.
When the television does not appear
- Same network. The computer and the television have to be on the same local network. A computer on a VPN that routes everything through a tunnel may not see the network it is sitting on.
- The firewall. On Windows, allow Frame Player on private networks when the firewall asks. If the television is found but never starts playing, that is the classic sign of a firewall between them, and the player says so.
- Different Wi-Fi bands. Some routers do not pass device discovery between the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks, or between cable and Wi-Fi, even when everything else works. Frame Player also asks the devices on your network directly rather than relying on discovery alone, which is meant to get around exactly that.
- The check. The gear on a device’s row can run a check — whether the set is reachable, what it says it can play, whether it allows seeking — with a copy button for the result, so a problem can be reported with the details in it.
Questions
Do I need a Chromecast?
No. Many smart TVs can play a file sent to them over DLNA without anything plugged in, and Frame Player lists them next to Chromecasts, Google TVs and sets with Chromecast built in. A television that speaks both appears once.
Is the video re-encoded or mirrored?
Neither. The television fetches the file from your computer and decodes it itself. When a Chromecast cannot take the container, the file is repacked into one it can take with the video copied bit for bit, which takes seconds. The picture is never re-encoded.
Does my computer have to stay on?
Yes. The television reads the file from your computer over the local network as it plays, the same way it would read it from a network drive.
My TV does not show up. What should I check?
That the computer and the TV are on the same network, and — on macOS 15 and later — that Frame Player is allowed under System Settings › Privacy & Security › Local Network. On Windows, allow the player through the firewall on private networks when it asks. A VPN that sends all traffic through a tunnel can hide the local network too.
Can I send subtitles to the TV?
Over DLNA the whole file goes across, so the television's own subtitle menu can pick any track that is inside it. Frame Player does not yet send a separate subtitle file to a Chromecast; that is planned.