Watch an MP4 or MOV on your TV

Select the video, then choose the TV

1. Visit Cast to Your TV in desktop Chrome.
2. Drop the MP4 or MOV into the main file area, or browse to a file.
3. Let preparation finish automatically. There is no separate prepare button or library import.
4. Press Cast and select the TV. Keep the computer awake and Chrome open.

If a TV connection is already open, selecting another file does not silently replace its picture: press Cast for the new selection. The app holds one current file, so use Choose another file when you want to replace it.

MP4 or MOV is only part of the answer

The extension identifies a container; its tracks determine how the app can play it. A MOV camera recording and an MP4 download may use different video codecs, audio codecs, frame rates or colour formats. The browser media engine inspects those details instead of treating every MP4 or MOV as interchangeable.

Compatible H.264 video can be repackaged without re-encoding the picture. Other combinations may need local decoding and conversion. Browser codec support and device resources determine whether that works. Renaming holiday.mov to holiday.mp4 does not change its tracks, repair damage or remove protection. DRM-protected copies are not supported by this local-file player.

Keep detail without promising impossible output

The gear → Quality setting defaults to Original. It aims to retain the source dimensions and frame rate where supported. Choosing 1080p or 720p reduces dimensions when needed; it does not create extra detail in a smaller source.

The result on the television also depends on the connection route. Desktop Chrome controls the final mirroring encode. Android screen casting is controlled by Android. A TV’s decoder, wireless conditions and the phone or computer can all constrain the result. A 4K or HDR source file is therefore not a guarantee of 4K or HDR TV output. If motion stutters, try a lower quality and compare the same scene.

Soundtracks, captions and playback controls

Open the gear menu to choose among available audio tracks. Compatible AAC can be preserved; sound that needs conversion is prepared as stereo AAC at 256 kbps. Use Subtitles to select available embedded text, add an SRT or WebVTT sidecar, change text size or turn captions off.

The player supports pause, seeking, volume and mute. Supported embedded text in MP4 and MOV is read locally, but fragmented or unusual subtitle layouts can need a separate subtitle file. A subtitle warning does not necessarily mean the video itself is unusable. See how subtitles work before enabling burn-in, which requires whole-file conversion.

Phones and unusually large recordings

For phone-specific instructions, use the Android guide or iPhone and iPad guide. Android Chrome discovery can fail even when the operating system’s Cast control works; the gear menu offers an explicit Android screen-casting alternative. iPhone uses manual AirPlay screen mirroring to an AirPlay-compatible television, not a Cast-only TV.

Compatible multi-GB recordings can stream incrementally, without loading the full file into memory. Whole-file fallback conversion and subtitle burn-in still have 256 MiB input and output bounds. Media is not uploaded to our cloud, but the website and account or playback verification still need network access. Keep the browser visible on phones and avoid reloading, which loses the current file selection.