Watch Concert Films from Your Mac on a Big Screen

Vasja Veber

Nov 6, 2026

For those who have been collecting music for a long period of time will have an ever growing collection of very random MP3 and FLAC files, such as live recordings of concerts from the early 2000’s, rips of a few Blu-ray discs of a few of the concert recordings of live albums, Music Videos, files of rehearsal sessions of your own music, etc. All of these files and discs reside in a certain location on your computer, while the speakers which play and deliver the sound from the file and discs are located in another room in your house. This leads to one of the most direct ways of answering the question: do I need build my own full Plex library just in order to play a concert or other musical event from my computer on the big screen (TV)? For a small number of these files, such as only one or two files, it is not necessary at all to use a media server; you can simply play them with a desktop media player and your TV will be able to connect to your computer and stream any of those files wirelessly. I will go through that process and compare all the tools available for that purpose and also discuss when a media server will be the better option.

Why concert footage is harder to play than it looks

It is very seldom that a live recording is made available as a single file, for it very often comes in a container form like MKV having multiple audio tracks (Stereo, Surround, Commentary) as well as multiple subtitle files (Lyrics, Banter between Songs). Since the recording is of sufficient length, you will want to create a playlist that is going to be stable. One more problem is timing. If the sound deviates even a small amount from the picture, as a rule, it is very noticeable when you watch the movements of the hands of the drummer. Lyric subtitles that are provided in an external .srt file usually need to be loaded manually by the user. What the subtitles look like on a TV depends on how they appear on a TV. What you want and what you get when you play a file on the Mac are different from what you get on a television; therefore it is useful to learn which player works on which medium.

Do you need Plex to watch them on a TV?

Local playback is when the file is on your Mac or an external hard drive, and nothing needs to be streamed over the internet, either by a remote server or for any other purpose (other than possibly looking for subtitles remotely). While sending via home network (using AirPlay or Google Cast/DLNA or Roku protocols) entails sending the film from your Mac to a compatibleTelevision/streaming device on your home network; both devices must have supported the same protocol and be within the same network range as each other; it does not enable viewing from outside your residence. The third type of media access is through a media server (or the use of a service). Using a media server like Plex for example, there is a central host computer that manages the artwork, descriptions associated with each title and will deliver that content to applications on a multitude of devices both inside and outside of the home. If you're looking to build a permanent, browsable library of concerts but are only setting up a library for a single night's viewing, that's more than likely unnecessary. So in this context "alternative to Plex" signifies a choice that fulfills the more specific task and not a replacement that fulfills all tasks.

The choice of suitable players in different functions. There are five main tools that are used by musicians. The best and free tool for musicians is VLC which supports a huge number of audio and video formats along with some networking features too. Some musicians may find its interface and way to stream music a little harder than other tools.

IINA is a different kind of tool, because it was built natively for macOS and its main goal is a clean and comfortable viewing experience on the Mac itself. It is a very pleasant choice when your computer is the screen you are going to watch on, but it is not meant to serve a library to other devices in the house. Infuse is more suitable for those who have a large collection of videos and wish to browse them with artwork and descriptions, and who are able to connect it to network shares or media servers, although some of its features are available only in a paid tier. Plex, as already mentioned, is the heavy option for a permanent library, many household devices and remote access, and the price of this is that you have to run and maintain a server; playing personal video away from home can also require a paid plan. Elmedia Player stays at the simple end of this list, as it opens local files and, in its PRO edition, casts them to a TV on your network, but it is not a library server and casting is not a part of the free edition. This is a comparison of tasks and tools and not a ranking of winners, because none of it is based on a benchmark.

Playing a concert file on the Mac first

Before you send anything to the television, it is wise to open the file on the Mac and check three things: the audio track, the synchronization and the subtitles. This is the point where a desktop player such as the Elmedia video player becomes useful. It opens common formats like MP4, MKV, AVI and WMV directly, without any library to build, and it offers the controls that matter the most for music footage, such as audio delay for the cases when the sound drifts away from the picture, and support for embedded and external subtitles with adjustable timing and appearance. No player supports every codec and DRM-protected files will not open at all, so it is better to try your own files than to assume that everything will work.

The same controls are helpful in a few less obvious situations. If you are learning a guitar part from a lesson video, slowing the playback down makes a fast run readable, although speed and some picture settings may not carry over once you start casting to the TV. A playlist lets you put a full concert, a documentary about the tour and an encore clip in one sequence, so that they play one after another and you do not have to return to the keyboard in the middle of the evening. If the lyrics come in an external .srt file, load it first and then move the timing a little in case the lines appear too early or too late.

Short guide to connecting your TV

Let us take one concrete case: three concert clips, two of them in MP4 and one in MKV, where the MKV comes with an external .srt file, and you want to watch them in a row on the living-room TV. Casting is a PRO feature of Elmedia, so the first thing to do is to make sure that you have the PRO edition. After that, check that your TV or streamer supports AirPlay, Google Cast, DLNA or Roku streaming, and connect the Mac and the receiver to the same local network. If your router isolates devices from each other, the TV will simply not show up on the list, so it is worth checking this at the very beginning. When this is done, open one of the files on the Mac and confirm that the audio track and the subtitles are correct, because it is much easier to fix a problem here than from the sofa. Then add the three files to a playlist in the order in which you want to see them, open the streaming control, wait until the list of devices appears, and choose your TV or streamer. The last step is to confirm that the picture has started, that the subtitle track is displayed and that the queue moves to the next file by itself. The names of the buttons and the available options differ between app versions and receivers, so if the wording is not the same, follow the current help article of the app. If the file, the subtitles and the receiver are compatible, this is the whole workflow, but the result always depends on your Mac, your files, your TV and your network, so please treat it as a procedure and not as a promise.

Sound is the whole point

With a concert video the sound is the main thing, and most of the casting problems appear exactly here. A file can contain a surround or high-bitrate audio track that your TV or soundbar is not able to decode. If you get silence or distorted sound, check which audio formats your receiver accepts and whether your player has a downmix option described in its documentation. When a receiver cannot handle a file as it is, the video may have to be converted on the fly, which adds load and can influence the smoothness of playback. In other words, whether a file plays directly or is converted depends on the video, audio and subtitle formats that the receiver supports, and not only on the fact that the Mac can open it. Subtitles follow the same logic, since the display of separate tracks on the TV depends on the protocol and on the receiver, and in some cases the text has to be burned into the picture. The quality of the network matters as well. A live recording with a high bitrate sent over a weak Wi-Fi signal can stutter in any player, and a stronger signal or a wired connection usually helps more than a change of the application.

When you actually need a media server

A desktop player is enough for as long as the files and the viewer are on the Mac or in the same home network. A server such as Plex becomes the better choice when you want a permanent library with posters and descriptions, when several people or devices in the house are going to use it, or when you would like to have your concerts available while you travel. Plex has a free tier for streaming your own media locally, while remote playback of personal video may require a plan, so check the current Plex pricing and do not assume either way.

When casting goes wrong

A few problems come back again and again. If the TV does not appear in the list of devices, make sure that both devices are in the same network and subnet, look at the router for client isolation and confirm that macOS allows the app to find devices on the local network. If the playback stutters or buffers, move closer to the router or use a wired connection, and try a copy of the file with a lower bitrate, because conversion on the fly adds extra load. When the lyrics are missing, find out which subtitle method your receiver supports before you decide to burn the text into the picture. And if there is no sound at all, look at the audio codec support of the receiver first, as this is the most frequent reason.

Source of music data: Viberate.com
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