Use Google music

Sadly I'm well over the 20k limit. I fail to see the point of uploading my music to the cloud just so I can download it again when it's sitting on a local NAS. Music Manager can't understand .m3u or .pls playlists. And the UI i/f is a poor copy of my local favourite Winamp.

I could set up a DLNA media server, except that the server's are universally rubbish and so are the clients. There's a separate feature request there that Chromecast acted like a DLNA renderer client. That would allow the use of the WMP "Play To" function.

A "Cast Audio" should be trivial seeing as they already have a "Cast screen/window" function which already grabs Windows audio output and redirects it. And that would avoid being forced to stay inside the Google ecosystem just to play a music track.

Google announced Cast for Audio a little while ago so audio only support is coming in some form.

I think what I want is the inverse of Cast for Audio. It looks like it will let you cast from a Cast aware music app (eg GPM or Pandora) to compatible hardware containing a version of the Chromecast. Whereas I want to cast audio from any application on the windows laptop to an existing Chromecast. The cast may be kicked off from Chrome and use Chrome's extension sub systems, but the app could be any windows program.

Let's say we (the public) wanted iTunes or Windows Media Player to become Chromecast aware. Who's going to do the work? Because it's not going to be Apple or Microsoft, right.

Well I think with things like capturing audio from specific programs (iTunes, WMP), it would be hopeful that something like Airfoil from Rogue Amoeba adds Cast support instead of just AirPlay.

I kind of doubt an extension would be good enough for that level of directness.

maybe i'm wrong or maybe this is only available on chromebooks, but cannot you choose "audio only" as an option using the cast extension on chromeOS?

There's a "Cast this tab (optimise for audio)" option, but not an "audio only" option. AT least on my Chrome with Cast 14.1113.0.4 and 15.114.0.1 The later Cast beta allows you to cast just one window as well as the whole screen but it won't pick up system audio unless you cast the whole screen. I've tried this with Winamp, WMP, iTunes, VLC and in each case the window contents gets mirrored across but not the audio.

yes you are right +Julian Bond .  I think that's what I was thinking of

What is iTunes???

What is the windows media player? I think I have dark memories of those in my childhood.

That's not helpful, +DirtyDog Yellow card.

+Julian Bond You can also submit any Chromecast feature requests to Google here:  http://www.google.com/moderator/#16/e=217804

For those interested, you can also vote on feature requests there.

Hmmm. Yet another feedback method ...

+Julian Bond These are not features Google can do, but rather features you should be asking ITunes, Media Player, and WinAmp forums. Google does something similar on Android but it controls the OS. While Microsoft is getting more Linux friendly, this might be asking too much.