Casting to a TV
IPTV Deck casts properly: the television fetches and decodes the stream itself. Nothing goes through the phone, so nothing is re-encoded, the quality is whatever the television can decode, and locking the phone changes nothing.
That is not screen mirroring, and it is why the battery does not melt.
Casting
Section titled “Casting”The cast button is in the header on the phone, and in the player.
- Tap it. The app searches your local network and lists what it finds.
- Pick a device. The header says Casting to
. - The mini control bar gives you play, pause and seek, and the player’s controls keep working.
Audio and subtitle tracks can be chosen from the phone while it plays, and external subtitles are pushed to the television rather than burned in. Position stays in sync, so stopping the cast and carrying on locally resumes at the right second.
When nothing is found
Section titled “When nothing is found”- The Chromecast and the phone must be on the same network, and many routers keep guest Wi-Fi separate from the main one.
- Some routers block multicast discovery. If other casting apps also find nothing, that is the cause.
- Casting is not available on Apple TV, which has no Cast support of its own.
Casting versus “Watch on TV”
Section titled “Casting versus “Watch on TV””They are different things and it is worth knowing which you want:
| Cast | Watch on TV | |
|---|---|---|
| What plays it | The Chromecast’s own receiver | IPTV Deck running on your Android TV |
| What you get | Play, pause, seek, tracks | The whole app, your profile, your favourites |
| Needs | A Chromecast | IPTV Deck installed and paired on the television |
| Works with | Channels, films, episodes | Channels, films, episodes and whole multiview layouts |
If your television runs IPTV Deck, Watch on TV is almost always the better button: it hands the title over to a full app rather than a receiver.