Is there a way to cast streams to my TV without losing quality, adding a delay, and that will sound through my 5.1 setup? One option I can think of is hooking up my desktop PC to my TV, but it would be a pain to hook it up every time I want to stream something. I'm primarily going to be using smooth streams if that matters.
Best option, PC to TV using kodi addon
Equally good option, PC to TV using their web page sites
Or if you don't want to hook your PC up, start the stream on chrome and cast it to the TV. I use this all the time while using the multi cast option so I can watch 4 games at once.
Don't listen to first post and just buy a Chinese android box. Sometimes kodi does not run too well on some android boxes. I had a dreamlink t1+ and thought it was garbage for kodi compared to a fire tv. Hell it was garbage compared to wifi fire stick.
Um...yes. Quality stays very good in my experience.
Do yourself a favor and buy a cheap Chinese android box, it's the easiest solution. Smoothstreams has an apk available, so you can cast it from your phone. They also have a decent web interface, so you can cast a chrome tab too. Not sure on the audio part, I wasn't aware that their streams are in 5.1. Just make sure you test it out before the big day, casting and streaming might saturate your wifi connection.
But yea, if this is for your day-to-day watching and not for just one event, buy a box.
If your use is seriously that limited, although I think they're shit, get a Chinese android box. Install Kodi. Be done.
Just don't complain when it runs Netflix and everything else like ass. But for SS, and from the sound of it just events, it'll work fine.