Chromecast Ultra alternative for casting 4K HDR content?

King Mustard

I currently have a Chromecast, which supports 1080p only.

I recently bought a Hisense H65A6250UK TV (2019 model) and despite what you read on the Internet or in the manual, it is not fully DLNA-compliant and does not connect from mine (Huawei P30 Pro) or my partner's (Google Pixel 2 XL) phones. I do not wish to pursue this avenue any further; I have spend a lot of time online (mainly in forums) trying to diagnose it and it's not possible to solve.

I am wanting to upgrade to a 4K streamer that supports Dolby Vision (as that's what Netflix uses).

I will only use the device to cast Plex, YouTube, Plex etc. from my Android phone.

The Chromecast Ultra, at £70, is quite expensive.

I believe another option is Amazon's Fire TV Stick 4K (£50).

There are the Now TV Smart Box 4K and Roku Streaming Stick  but neither support Dolby Vision, which means no HDR support for Netflix.

Any thoughts?

next010

Firetv stick is cheapest option for Dolby Vision, your not going to get anything else lower.

DV is not mandatory for HDR, Netflix does support the standard HDR10 format as long as the box supports that too it should output in HDR.

If you have a Plex server capable of transcoding everything then you should not have any issues with the FireTV and casting video to it, an alternative to Plex is available on the FireTV app store called MrMC which can connect to Plex servers, unlike Plex clients MrMC decodes everything on the device instead of the server transcoding (useful if you don't have good Plex server).

Sloppy Bob

Without wishing to be rude over your purchase I wouldn't get too excited about DV on it. DV devices are not that common, either your TV has it, or it doesn't but most streaming devices don't particularly those at the budget end.

Virtually all 4K TV's now will display an HDR signal but only more expensive ones have the brightness to display it properly. Your TV, while perfectly good and a good buy at the price it is available for unfortunately doesn't meet that criteria.

To display HDR properly the TV needs to output ~1000 Nits of brightness, considerably more for Dolby Vision.

Having a read at the specs of your TV, it's output is ~200 Nits which is well wide of the mark. It doesn't mean it doesn't do HDR, it just means it's not bright enough, however, non-HDR TV's look awful when watching an HDR signal with the colours all washed out, your TV being HDR compatible will avoid that.