Supported Media for Google Cast

Google Cast supports the following media facilities and types. Some of these require additional coding or the Cast Application Framework (CAF). See Basic CAF Receiver Applications for more information about developing your receiver application to support these media types.

Note: If you're having problems playing streams on a Cast device, it may be an issue with CORS. Use a publicly available CORS proxy server to test your streams. (Please note that such third-party software as referenced here is not controlled by Google. Google cannot guarantee that third-party software will operate as intended. Please proceed with caution.)

All Google Cast receiver applications support the following.

Image formats

• BMP
• GIF
• JPEG
• PNG
• WEBP

Note: Images have a display size limitation of 720p (1280x720). Images should be optimized to 1280x720 or less to avoid scaling down on the receiver device.

Media container formats

• AAC
• MP3
• MP4
• WAV
• WebM

Note: You can determine if a particular codec is supported with a call to CastReceiverContext.canDisplayType(). For example:

   const context = cast.framework.CastReceiverContext.getInstance();
   context.canDisplayType('audio/mp4', 'mp4a.40.5');  //returns true

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 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 5.2 (2160p/60fps)
• VP8 (2160p/60fps)
• 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

  Dolby Vision is a trademark of Dolby Laboratories, Inc.

Google Home Hub

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

Audio codecs

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

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"

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 (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)

The Cast Application Framework (CAF) supports AC-3 passthrough. If you're not using CAF, you can check the codec support prior to creating the source buffer by using the CastReceiverContext.canDisplayType() method and passing mp4a.a5 for AC-3 or mp4a.a6 for E-AC-3.

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

Media type strings

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"

Delivery methods and adaptive streaming protocols

These are available through use of the Cast Application Framework (CAF).

• 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 & closed captions

Your subtitle resources must implement CORS.

• TTML - Timed Text Markup Language
• WebVTT - Web Video Text Tracks
• CEA-608/708