[Google Chromecast] Asphyx:
aVia is not the ideal way to stream to CCast but it is the only way currently available to send local ON DEVICE content to the CCast (and I forgot that RealPlayer cloud can also do something similar). This will change in time I assure you. But see bhiga response to understand why there will be issues with this methodology and ON DEVICE content in general. I will expand on it after...

Just to add to what BHIGA said....720P has much lower Bitrate requirements for full resolution compared to 1080P but there is a point where increased Bitrate gets you virtually nothing as far as extra quality regarding 720P. Once there is enough bitrate available to show a full resolution 720P frame any bitrate over that is wasted. You're pretty much transmitting nothingness with it, But your Router sure doesn't know this!

the Bitrate used is always a compromise between Quality of picture vs Quality and ability to stream and the Device's ability to display.

You can't just rip a Bluray at full res and Bitrate and expect it to play well on your device let alone over a WiFi Network. Especially when the device that is sending the file uses half the WiFi to connect to the network as well.

In the end it makes little sense to encode a Library at a higher quality than your best device can display. And that is usually around the 1080P/20 Mbps bitrate. Anything more than that will run into Network issues if not Transcoded even in a full wired system.

If you have a DLNA server that does transcoding and it runs on a pretty powerful unit then you can cheat up the quality of your library to be higher because the Server will downgrade the stream to work for your unit and network as needed. The one Caveat is that the Server isn't getting the file over the network as well such as from an NAS. Some NAS' have a media server but they also have low power procs that don't transcode as well as a full desktop will. a SATA Port will send data to the transcoder faster than the Ethernet and it won't clog up the network while it does it.

If you have an high power HTPC that is wired to the network (Like I do and I don't mean RasPi or Atom driven devices) then get yourself a DLNA server like Plex or Twonky and put it on that unit, Put as much storage in it as you can to hold your media. and let it serve as the media server for the entire house. With the right setup there will be no reason at all to ever need to store or stream content from your device as you will have basically set up a home cloud Media service you can use anywhere you have data access.

aVia may allow you to stream content from a local device but most devices and Wireless networks are not up to the task of doing it well. and performance will Vary from device to device.

aVia solves a problem in that it can stream media from a mobile unit but there was a reason it was a problem in the first place...

Mobile units are not very good at acting like Media Servers. Isn't enough Storage to hold a lot of files, Isn't enough storage to even Buffer which is required for transcoding and the fact that none of them can connect via Wired Ethernet really makes it a bad idea to do unless you severely reduce the quality of the source content and ensure it is 100% compatible with your target device.

In the case of CCast that means MP4/H264/AAC with a Bitrate no higher than 4-8Mbps.

And really that should be enough quality because anymore and all your doing is adding PAUSES to the stream to get a few more pixels in resolution.