Many people think watching Amazon Prime with Chromecast is difficult or offers low-quality streaming, but this isn’t true. Here’s how to do it and get great quality.
There are a lot of cord cutting services out there that integrate well with Chromecast. Hulu, Netflix, Vudu, and more are all streaming services that are integrated with Chromecast for casting. Unfortunately, because Amazon wants people to purchase its Fire TV Stick, Amazon Prime has no Chromecast integration.
However, there’s a way to get around Amazon’s greed, and that’s by using the Chrome browser’s cast feature.
Watch Amazon Prime with Chromecast
For this option to work, there are a few prerequisites you’ll need in place first.
- The latest version of the Google Chrome browser installed, or a Chromebook device.
- Chromecast device plugged into your TV or an Android TV.
- An Amazon Prime subscription is not required but it will, of course, give you access to more content.
Make sure your Chromecast device is connected to your home network and works properly. You can test this by installing the Google Home app and making sure your Chromecast device is recognized. Once you know your Chromcast device is plugged into your TV and working properly, you’re ready to stream Amazon Prime to the device.
Stream Amazon Prime to Chromecast with Google Chrome
Using Google Chrome, log into your Amazon Prime account and find a movie or TV show you’d like to stream. Go ahead and launch the Amazon video in your browser.
Once the video is playing, select the three dots at the upper-right corner of the Chrome window, and select Cast.
This will bring up another window that will display all of the detected Google devices on your home network that the browser is capable of casting that browser tab to. Choose the television your Chromecast device is plugged into. You’ll see the device turn blue once casting has started.
How to Improve Amazon Prime Streaming Quality
You’ll notice a few issues while streaming Amazon Prime content. One is that if you try to watch the video in your browser while it’s also streaming to the Chromecast device, the audio could start stuttering.
The other issue is that streaming a tab limits the quality to 1080p, and the quality could be reduced if you have a poor network connection or a slow network card.
You can improve both of these issues with a couple of small tweaks. The first is enabling a flag in the Chrome browser called #enable-new-remote-playback-pipeline. This optimizes the streaming of video content from the browser to remote devices like a Chromecast. To enable this, type chrome://flags/#media-remoting in your browser URL field.
Type: remote into the search field. Set Enable the new remote playback pipeline to Enabled.
You’ll need to click the Relaunch Now button to restart the browser. Make sure once you restart the Amazon Prime video and cast it to your Chromecast, that you set the video to full-screen mode to take full advantage of this feature.
Another way to improve the quality of video streaming to the Chromecast is a special setting in the Google Home app to use 50Hz HDMI mode. This improves the video quality if your TV can support 50Hz HDMI.
To access this:
- Open the Google Home app.
- Tap the TV your Chromecast is connected to.
- Tap the gear icon to enter the Chromecast settings.
- Scroll down to the Display section, and enable Use 50Hz HDMI Mode.
With these two settings tweaked, you should see a significant improvement in the video streaming quality when you cast video from the Amazon Prime tab.
Adjusting Volume When Casting Amazon Prime
Many people think that you can’t control the volume when casting from Amazon Prime other than using your TV remote. This would be unfortunate since casting a tab streaming Amazon Prime tends to run at a lower volume than most services.
Thankfully, this couldn’t be further from the truth. There are several ways to control the volume once you start casting the tab.
First, you can modify the volume from Amazon Prime itself. While streaming in full-screen mode, you’ll see a speaker icon. Adjust this to maximum volume. Most likely, this won’t be loud enough, but it’s a good start.
Next, you can use the Google Home app to adjust the volume of your Chromecast device itself. This usually has the biggest impact on the overall volume.
To access this screen:
- Open the Google Home app.
- Scroll down to the Chromecast TV you’re casting to and tap on it.
- Move the volume slider around the arc until the volume is loud enough.
The odds are good that you won’t be able to set this volume to 100% without the volume getting too loud.
If you do get to 100% in Google Home, your final option is, in fact, the TV remote itself. Once you’ve set the TV volume to 100%, all volume settings for Amazon Prime casting is as loud as your casting experience can get.
The Freedom to Cast Amazon Prime
It’s unfortunate that Amazon is one of the few video streaming services that made the choice to opt out of the casting game. The last thing you should do is purchase a Fire TV device. Doing so will only reward the fact that Amazon refuses to integrate with other devices.
There is no way for Amazon to prevent you from casting your Chrome browser tab, so this is the perfect solution until Amazon finally decides to add a cast feature to their video streaming service.