Supported Media for Google Cast

Google Cast supports the following media facilities and types. Some of these require additional coding or the Web Receiver SDK. See Create a Basic Web Receiver App for more information about developing your Web Receiver application to support these media types.

All Cast Web Receiver applications support the following.

Image formats

  • APNG
  • BMP
  • GIF
  • JPEG
  • PNG
  • WEBP

Media container formats

  • MP2T
  • MP3
  • MP4
  • OGG
  • WAV
  • WebM

Video codecs

Chromecast 1st and 2nd Gen.

  • H.264 High Profile up to level 4.1 (720p/60fps or 1080p/30fps)
  • VP8 (720p/60fps or 1080p/30fps)

Chromecast 3rd and 4th Gen.

  • H.264 High Profile up to level 4.2 (1080p/60fps)
  • VP8 (720p/60fps or 1080p/30fps)

Chromecast Ultra

  • H.264 High Profile up to level 4.2 (1080p/60fps)
  • VP8 (2160p/30fps)
  • HEVC / H.265 Main and Main10 Profiles up to level 5.1 (2160p/60fps)

  • VP9 Profile 0 and Profile 2 up to level 5.1 (2160p/60fps)

    High Dynamic Range (HDR)

    • Dolby® Vision™
    • HDR10

Google Nest Hub

  • H.264 High Profile up to level 4.1 (720p/60fps)
  • VP9 up to level 4.0 (720p/60fps)

Nest Hub Max

  • H.264 High Profile up to level 4.1 (720p/30fps)
  • VP9 up to level 4.0 (720p/30fps)

Audio codecs

Chromecast Audio, Google Home, and Google Home Mini support the following list of codecs:

  • FLAC (up to 96kHz/24-bit)
  • HE-AAC
  • LC-AAC
  • MP3
  • Opus
  • Vorbis
  • WAV (LPCM)
  • WebM

Media type strings

MP4 video and audio

Video codec Video profile Audio codec Audio profile Media type string
H.264 level 3.0 baseline AAC aac_he video/mp4; codecs="avc1.42E01E, mp4a.40.5"
aac_lc video/mp4; codecs="avc1.42E01E, mp4a.40.2"
MP3 video/mp4; codecs="avc1.42E01E, mp4a.69"
video/mp4; codecs="avc1.42E01E, mp4a.6B"
H.264 level 3.1 baseline AAC aac_he video/mp4; codecs="avc1.42E01F, mp4a.40.5"
aac_lc video/mp4; codecs="avc1.42E01F, mp4a.40.2"
MP3 video/mp4; codecs="avc1.42E01F, mp4a.69"
video/mp4; codecs="avc1.42E01F, mp4a.6B"
H.264 level 3.1 main AAC aac_he video/mp4; codecs="avc1.4D401F, mp4a.40.5"
aac_lc video/mp4; codecs="avc1.4D401F, mp4a.40.2"
MP3 video/mp4; codecs="avc1.4D401F, mp4a.69"
video/mp4; codecs="avc1.4D401F, mp4a.6B"
H.264 level 4.0 main AAC aac_he video/mp4; codecs="avc1.4D4028, mp4a.40.5"
aac_lc video/mp4; codecs="avc1.4D4028, mp4a.40.2"
MP3 video/mp4; codecs="avc1.4D4028, mp4a.69"
video/mp4; codecs="avc1.4D4028, mp4a.6B"
H.264 level 4.0 high AAC aac_he video/mp4; codecs="avc1.640028, mp4a.40.5"
aac_lc video/mp4; codecs="avc1.640028, mp4a.40.2"
MP3 video/mp4; codecs="avc1.640028, mp4a.69"
video/mp4; codecs="avc1.640028, mp4a.6B"
H.264 level 4.1 high AAC aac_he video/mp4; codecs="avc1.640029, mp4a.40.5"
aac_lc video/mp4; codecs="avc1.640029, mp4a.40.2"
MP3 video/mp4; codecs="avc1.640029, mp4a.69"
video/mp4; codecs="avc1.640029, mp4a.6B"
H.264 level 4.2 high AAC aac_he video/mp4; codecs="avc1.64002A, mp4a.40.5"
aac_lc video/mp4; codecs="avc1.64002A, mp4a.40.2"
MP3 video/mp4; codecs="avc1.64002A, mp4a.69"
video/mp4; codecs="avc1.64002A, mp4a.6B"

MP4 video only

Video codec Video profile Video level Media type string Notes
Dolby Vision 05 06 video/mp4; codecs="dvhe.05.06" 4k24fps
07 video/mp4; codecs="dvhe.05.07" 4k30fps
09 video/mp4; codecs="dvhe.05.09" 4k60fps
08 06 video/mp4; codecs="dvhe.08.06" 4k24fps, compatible with HEVC decoder
07 video/mp4; codecs="dvhe.08.07" 4k30fps, compatible with HEVC decoder
09 video/mp4; codecs="dvhe.08.09" 4k60fps, compatible with HEVC decoder
H.265 main 5.0 video/mp4; codecs="hev1.1.6.L150.B0"
5.1 video/mp4; codecs="hev1.1.6.L153.B0"
main10 5.0 video/mp4; codecs="hev1.2.6.L150.B0"
5.1 video/mp4; codecs="hev1.2.6.L153.B0"

MP4 audio only

Format Audio codec Audio profile Media type string
M4A AAC aac_he audio/mp4; codecs="mp4a.40.5"
aac_lc audio/mp4; codecs="mp4a.40.2"
MP3 MP3 audio/mp3
MPA MP3 audio/mpeg
MP3 audio/mpeg; codecs="mp3"
MP4 MP3 audio/mp4; codecs="mp4a.69"
MP3 audio/mp4; codecs="mp4a.6B"

MP4 non-compliant audio media types

Format Audio codec Media type string
M4A HE-AAC audio/mp4; codecs="mp4a.40.05"
LC-AAC audio/mp4; codecs="mp4a.40.02"

WebM video and audio

Format Video codec Audio codec Media type string
WebM VP8 Vorbis video/webm; codecs="vp8, vorbis"
WebM VP9 Vorbis video/webm; codecs="vp9, vorbis"
WebM (audio only) Vorbis audio/webm; codecs="vorbis"

Audio passthrough

  • AC-3 (Dolby® Digital™ audio technology)
  • E-AC-3 (EC-3, Dolby® Digital Plus™ audio technology)
  • MPEG-H Audio

The Web Receiver SDK supports AC-3 passthrough. You can check the codec support prior to loading content using the CastReceiverContext.canDisplayType() method with the corresponding media type string for each codec.

Format Audio codec Media type string
MP4 AAC audio/mp4; codecs="mp4a.40.2"
AC-3 audio/mp4; codecs="ac-3"
audio/mp4; codecs="mp4a.a5"
E-AC-3 audio/mp4; codecs="ec-3"
audio/mp4; codecs="mp4a.a6"
MPEG-H Audio audio/mp4; codecs="mhm1.0x0D"

Delivery methods and adaptive streaming protocols

These are available through use of the Web Receiver SDK.

  • MPEG-DASH

    • DRM Support: PlayReady (SL 2000), Widevine (Level 1)

  • SmoothStreaming

    • DRM Support: PlayReady (SL 2000)

  • HTTP Live Streaming (HLS)

    • DRM Support: AES-128, SAMPLE-AES using Widevine (Level 1)

  • Progressive download without adaptive switching

With adaptive bitrate streaming protocols, you must implement CORS. To implement an encrypted protocol, including DRM, you should develop a Custom Receiver. See DRM support for more information.

Subtitles and closed captions

Your subtitle resources must implement CORS.



Dolby, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, and Dolby Vision are trademarks of Dolby Laboratories, Inc.