This is a long overdue article and I decided to post it so I can simply send it to all those who ask me about the best but also easiest way to play local videos on a Chromecast.

Some may prefer other ways of playing local videos on Chromecast, including using a command line tool such as stream2chromecast, pulseaudio-dlna to  play music from a computer to a Chromecast, as well as the VideoStream Chromecast extension (which I hear is unreliable lately).

Plex is, however, the complete solution for all local media streaming to Chromecast needs, and is fairly easy to set up, despite my long article.

It can be used to stream local videos (and can transcode videos not supported by Chromecast), music, and photos, both in your local network as well as remotely, e.g. to a hotel or a friend's house.

Furthermore, Plex Media Server is cross-platform, so it can be installed on an a Linux, FreeBSD, Windows or Mac computer, as well as on NAS.

pulseaudio-dlna is a lightweight streaming server that makes it easy to stream audio from a Linux computer that uses PulseAudio, to a DLNA / UPnP or Chromecast device in the same network.