Chromebooks may soon be getting native Chromecast support

For those of you that use Chromebooks, you’ll know that the Video Player is a part of the files app. Which isn’t the best idea, but it works. However, it appears that the Chrome OS team is looking to separate the Video Player and Files app from each other. The Files app is basically like Finder in OS X or the File Explorer/Windows Explorer in Windows 7/8/8.1. Many of you also know that Chromebooks get updates every 6 weeks, and it looks like the next update to the video player will bring Chromecast support to every Chromebook out there. Which is definitely a great idea. And in all honesty, I’m sort of surprised it hadn’t happened already.

Chrome OS devices could soon be able to beam local media to any Chromecast streaming stick without the need to use any workarounds: Latest Chromium commits found by Chromestory.com suggest that the native Chrome OS video player is getting Chromecast support in the near future. Chromium developers recently started to separate the Chrome OS video player from the Files app and turn it into a standalone app. At the time, it looked like this was primarily about making it easier to use the Files app, which is essentially the Chrome OS version of the Finder in OS X or File Explorer in Windows, and the video player at the same time; however, it now looks like the update could also bring casting to Chrome OS. Currently, Chrome OS users have to load any media they want to cast into the Chrome browser and then use tab casting, which essentially mirrors the content of that browser tab. However, this process involves transcoding, which can degrade the quality if a video, and generally requires a pretty powerful computer to run smoothly.