A film that plays on a Chromecast with a picture but no sound usually has DTS or Dolby TrueHD audio, which Chromecasts can’t decode. The video is fine, so re-encoding the whole film is a waste of time and quality.
The fix
Driftcast decides each stream separately. If the picture is playable and the sound isn’t, it converts the sound alone and leaves the picture untouched.
- Install Driftcast, a free Mac app.
- Drag the film onto the Driftcast window.
- Choose your Chromecast and press play.
What the sound becomes
- By default: stereo AAC, or Opus if you choose it in Settings.
- With a soundbar or receiver that decodes Dolby: turn on Pass through Dolby surround in Settings > Audio, and DTS and TrueHD become Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 instead. Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus tracks, including Atmos, then go through untouched.
The same applies to Vorbis, PCM, WMA and other formats a Chromecast can’t play. If the file has several audio tracks, you can pick any of them, and your preferred language is chosen automatically.
An honest note: Driftcast’s Chromecast support follows Google’s documentation, and its streams have been checked in Apple’s player, but it hasn’t been tried on a real Chromecast yet. If you own one, please say how it went, working or not.
Get Driftcast
Driftcast is free and open source, with no account, trial or ads. It needs macOS 13 Ventura or later, on an Apple silicon or Intel Mac.
Download Driftcast · Source code on GitHub · Everything it plays
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