Send videos to your Chromecast thanks to Mkchromecast for Ubuntu

The Chromecast device is becoming more and more useful and more famous. However, not all operating systems can interact well with the device. Android is the perfect operating system to work with Chromecast but it seems that Ubuntu is not far behind. Ubuntu Phone was already compatible with Miracast technology and these advances seem to have allowed the development of new programs that make Chromecast can be controlled by us from our Ubuntu.

A popular program that takes advantage of these technologies is mkchromecast, a program that allows us to send audios, images and now also videos to the Chromecast device that we have connected to the same network than the computer.

Until now, Mkchromecast allowed connecting to the device and sending files such as audios and images, but the recent update allows send video files and even connect to Youtube and make this service show on TV with Chromecast.

MkChromecast allows connection to Sonos speakers

For this to be so we just have to connect the Chromecast to the same network as our equipment and execute the following commands in the terminal:

mkchromecast --video -i "directorio y archivo que queremos ejecutar"

And if we want to send YouTube to our Chromecast:

mkchromecast -y "Dirección url del video en youtube" --video

But the chromecast and our TV are not the only devices to which Mkchromecast can be connected. Sonos smart speakers can also reproduce sound from our equipment and even the audio of our videos.

In order to install this application, we just have to go to the official website and download the deb package corresponding to our platform. We can also go to Software Center to install it graphically, but in this case the version is old and will not allow sending video files. And if we do not want to add any software or anything similar, always we can change Mkchromecast for Chrome / Chromium function, although this option consumes more resources.