I currently have the 8100NEX. I wanted to know if anyone has tried to streaming Chromecast via the HDMI port and using one of the USB ports?

google chromecast needs Internet to work. You can setup your smartphone's network settings to have chromecast connect to your phone and still have LTE capabilities, granted you are still connected to a internet source of some sort, but as soon as you leave that internet source, your chromecast will fail. Sorry not sure if that was very clear... But to save you a headache, I suggest not to try. Lol. Hopefully one day Google will push out a firmware so that the chromecast won't need Internet to work or if someone can tweak the firmware to work that way. For now, only hardwiring is the only way I know.