[Google Chromecast] Asphyx:
Well for one if you don't have a smartTV or one with Network support Chromecast is your only method...

and Two, Most SmartTV Implementations of DLNA support are kludgy, badly written, limited in compatible content and rarely updated to modern standards.

I tell anyone who is in he market for a smart TV to skip it if they can and put the money into better features or towards buying a HTPC or other DLNA device to hook up to it...

Now maybe I can add a Chromecast to that list.

But essentially your correct the difference is where the controls would lay....

With BUBBLE to SmartTV you need the TV remote and the unit on.

With Chromecast you control from ANY android device and you don't need to leave the unit on unless the content is coming directly from it.

As I said above Plex now has CCast support, If it add aggregation of other DLNA servers to the server then it will solve a lot of people's problems with ON UNIT content and transcoding.

---------- Post added at 10:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:03 PM ----------

Please do!!!!!! because I can't pretend to be an expert on how CCast works My expertise is in DLNA and Transcoding! LOL

I have some idea but in now way know exactly how CCast gets everything it gets....!

Just to show you folks some of what Plex Server does to send a CCast compatible stream here is the Chromecast Profile from Plex.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Client name="Chromecast">
<!-- Author: Plex Inc. -->
<TranscodeTargets>
<VideoProfile protocol="hls" container="mpegts" codec="h264" audioCodec="mp3" context="streaming">
<Setting name="VideoEncodeFlags" value="-x264opts bframes=3:cabac=1" />
<Setting name="SubtitleSize" value="100" />
</VideoProfile>
<VideoProfile protocol="dash" container="mp4" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac" context="streaming">
<Setting name="VideoEncodeFlags" value="-x264opts bframes=3:cabac=1" />
</VideoProfile>
<VideoProfile container="mp4" codec="h264" audioCodec="mp3" context="static">
<Setting name="VideoEncodeFlags" value="-x264opts cabac=0" />
<Setting name="SubtitleSize" value="100" />
</VideoProfile>
<MusicProfile container="mp3" codec="mp3" />
<PhotoProfile container="jpeg" />
</TranscodeTargets>
<TranscodeTargetProfiles>
<VideoTranscodeTarget protocol="dash" context="streaming">
<VideoCodec name="*">
<Limitations>
<UpperBound name="video.width" value="1280" />
<UpperBound name="video.height" value="720" />
<UpperBound name="video.bitrate" value="4000" isRequired="false" />
</Limitations>
</VideoCodec>
</VideoTranscodeTarget>
</TranscodeTargetProfiles>
<DirectPlayProfiles>
<VideoProfile container="mp4" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac" />
<MusicProfile container="mp4" codec="aac" />
<MusicProfile container="mp3" codec="mp3" />
<PhotoProfile container="jpeg,gif,bmp,png" />
</DirectPlayProfiles>
<ContainerProfiles>
<VideoContainer name="mp4">
<Limitations>
<Match name="part.optimizedForStreaming" value="1" />
</Limitations>
</VideoContainer>
</ContainerProfiles>
<CodecProfiles>
<VideoCodec name="*">
<Limitations>
<UpperBound name="video.width" value="1920" />
<UpperBound name="video.height" value="1080" />
<UpperBound name="video.bitDepth" value="8" isRequired="false" />
</Limitations>
</VideoCodec>
<VideoAudioCodec name="mp3">
<Limitations>
<UpperBound name="audio.bitrate" value="320" />
<UpperBound name="audio.channels" value="2" />
</Limitations>
</VideoAudioCodec>
<VideoAudioCodec name="aac">
<Limitations>
<UpperBound name="audio.bitrate" value="768" />
<UpperBound name="audio.channels" value="6" />
</Limitations>
</VideoAudioCodec>
<MusicCodec name="mp3">
<Limitations>
<UpperBound name="audio.bitrate" value="320" />
<UpperBound name="audio.channels" value="2" />
</Limitations>
</MusicCodec>
</CodecProfiles>
</Client>

This seems to suggest that even if your content is in some other codec that the Plex Server will transcode it into a H.264 Codec stream for playing on the Chromecast as well as set a proper bitrate for best quality.