Windows PC -> Chromecast

Hello all, newbie here.

Synology NAS in office primarily for serving video content. I was running their ‘DS Video’ on android tablet for some time and streaming to Chromecast directly from that; works OK.

For reasons, it’s more convenient for me to use a laptop PC in living room than the tablet so I installed DS Video on laptop. Uh oh, no “send to Chromecast” feature like on the Android version. Am I correct here?

So, I setup KODI on the laptop; all good for content on that machine, things working well. But no “stream to Chromecast button” (that I can find).

Of course, when i use ‘chromecast desktop’ from the Chrome browser to stream the laptop to the TV, i get horrible compression & lag. Heck, i get chromecast lag just sharing fullscreen anything (forget KODI).

So, I know this is a horrible setup because its going from NAS to my laptop, then getting sent again to the TV via a browser, just clunky. The added problem is the movie is now playing on my laptop same time, unlike with DS Video on Android where the tablet would go dark/quiet while the movie was playing on the TV.

I think you see where this is going. How can i use KODI on a windows environment laptop but just stream the movies from the NAS to the Chromecast directly? I’ve looked at some of the so-called KODI android boxes out there, but i’m concerned they wont be configurable / customizable the way KODI on my full laptop is.

ANY help in this area is GREATLY appreciated by those who have blazed the trail, i’m sure this has been solved….ideally without any new hardware.

-jason