Casting Chrome tabs on your computer to your Google Chromecast couldn't be easier thanks to the dedicated extension, but getting local files from your computer cast to your TV isn't as easy. There's a couple of ways to do this.

The nightly versions of popular media app VLC come with a new test feature that allows you to share content from your computer to your TV screen. While this works on the Windows version, it's not visible on the Mac OS version, but we do have some alternatives on how to cast local content from your Mac.

Now first a warning: these are test versions of VLC and as they say on the site, there is absolutely no support for using these versions so you do so at your own risk -- and they can be glitchy. As pointed out on Ars Technica, this method won't always work and not all video files play nice with the VLC Chromecast feature.

To get it working on your computer, after installing the nightly build compatible with your machine, go to Tools > Render Output. There you should see your Chromecast listed, and you can select it to play your video through your TV.  If you want to give this a try yourself, nightly builds of VLC can be found here.

If you feel nervous about using VLC for any reason, there's a workaround you can use with Chrome using the Videostream for Google Chromecast app that makes it easy to navigate to files on your computer and cast them to your Chromecast.

How do you cast local content to your Chromecast? Let us know in the comments.