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Show HN: BigScreen sends pictures and music from OS X to ChromeCast

roguesavant.com

62 pointsfomojola37 comments

Was looking for an easy way to send pictures on my computer to my ChromeCast, and thought having a "native" app would be a nice way to do it without having to cast a Chrome tab. Since Google explicitly doesn't make SDKs available for anything other than iOS/Android/Chrome I ended up wrapping a couple of things together in a long little afternoon. Let me know what you think!

Looks great. I'd use this for videos on my laptop that I want to cast, so definitely looking forward to video support!

That is coming: ran out of time and didn't want to drag my feet on actually releasing it. Video is also complicated: transcoding becomes a real requirement and its just messy to do that in a performant way. But I have something like 40 apps and libraries I've written that are all 80% there but never get released, so for this one I set an explicit rule that it would be released in whatever stable state it is in by the end of July.

in that case... congrats on shipping!

Here is a C# library and sample app to send photos to an Apple TV using AirPlay:

https://github.com/spouliot/airplay

Looks nice! I've been using https://github.com/googlecast/CastHelloVideo-chrome plus some custom Java code to stream video content for a few months now. I'd love to have something like this as a UI instead of my cobbled mess. Drop me a PM or email @gmail if you want to compare notes. Cheers!

Thanks. Will reach out once I get a chance: the video transcoding/streaming will be the real heavy lifting. This was mostly just a node-webkit exercise, but not sure how cleanly it will merge with the Chrome code you linked to.

The transcoding isn't actually too bad. You basically just need ffmpeg compiled from source on your box, and you can use https://github.com/fluent-ffmpeg/node-fluent-ffmpeg . You just need to transcode everything go h264 / AAC (so make sure you compile with libfdk_aac ).

The thing I have been unable to figure out so far is how to start streaming to chromecast before the transcoding is complete. It will play to the point it was transcoded when I started playing, regardless of how far it has gotten since then. I have tried transcoding to HLS which chromecast supports, but have not been able to figure it out.

Are you planning on develping this open source? I didn't see a github for the actual project on first glance.

You can actually stream the file directly to the chromecast as it's transcoding.

I've got this working in my own chromecast app mkvcast: https://github.com/maherbeg/mkvcast

See https://github.com/maherbeg/mkvcast/blob/master/lib/controll... for the parameters to use.

I got something similar working in Java by simply exec'ing ffmpeg and getting a handle on the stream. Not being able to seek kind of sucks, and Chromecast does not like infinite streams. However, I've seen that he Chromecast will actually stream some MKVs just fine (so long as the underlying codecs are supported).

Thanks for the reference! This looks like just what I need.

It's a better experience when you're dealing with a complete file and not an in-progress transcode anyways. With a file you can seek and pause/resume. That's much, much harder with a stream (if at all possible). The other trick is that the Chromecast does some poking around in the stream to figure out the total time. This requires that you support Range requests and return correct Content-Length headers.

Thanks for the tips. I will look into the headers and see if I can't implement the range quests and content-length headers correctly, it doesn't seem like it should be that difficult.

Thanks for the transcoding tips: will look into that.

Wasn't actually thinking about github for this: if I develop a lot of free time I might tidy it up for public consumption, but by default its not particularly well commented or documented.

Nice, I have been looking for something like https://github.com/thibauts/node-castv2-client for a while.

All of the other NodeJS clients I found were written for version 1 and stopped working, so I ended up forking Popcorn Time and hacking it to work in a regular browser so I could use the official Chromecast Extension.

Yeah, spent a couple of hours trawling the web before I stumbled upon that: gold, that one. I'd originally started using ChromeCast's DIAL support but that's apparently deprecated, which is a shame because the replacement is quite a bit more complicated.

Try this for on the fly transcoding even unsupported media: https://github.com/mustafaakin/cast-localvideo Disclaimer: I made this, but people seems happy using it.

Thanks! Will make a note of that: I was afraid the answer would have to be ffmpeg (as it so often is with video). Was hoping for something neater, but I guess I should just be grateful for ffmpeg.

Or use Plex or XBMC and control it from your smartphone

Those solutions do exist, but to a certain degree the point of this was not to need a phone or Chrome. It is obvious that those are the sanctioned solutions from Google's perspective, but this is an attempt to provide a different option.

If I use this to play music, will my computer still go to sleep and stop playback like when I use a brower-based music app?

For stuff like that, I use Caffeine (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/caffeine/id411246225?mt=12) to prevent my Mac from sleeping.

Why are there recent Macs without HDMI ports? You'd think that would be ubiquitous by now.

Part of the point of things like Chromecast is to avoid having to hook things up to a TV.

But you're giving up the freedom to decide what content you consume. Chromecast is the media equivalent of AOL. I know what I want to watch/listen to, so let me decide, instead of hamstringing me with apps, or making me jump through hoops to circumvent the restrictions.

Plus, if you're watching a movie, or otherwise streaming for a considerable length of time, you're on wall power anyways, so whats one more cable?

Function > Form.

Mini-Displayport to HDMI / DVI / VGA adapters are less than $10.

Did they ever do anything about the audio jack? I always thought it was wack how they not only forced you to buy a dongle, but also a 3.55m to rca cable.

Some mini-dp to HDMI adapters also pass audio through (including I believe the Apple branded one as well as one I bought after confirming reviews on Amazon), but I've also bought a couple that do not

Not if you buy them from Apple.

What does that have to do with anything? Chromecast isn't an HDMI port competitor...

Oh, come on. Chromecast is a way to display PC content on a TV. An HDMI cable allows you to display PC content on your TV.

Perhaps you mean't Chromecast doesn't compete very well with HDMI?

No, I meant that chromecast's value proposition isn't "if you don't have an HDMI port, you can use this to watch things!", so I don't understand the comment about Macs and HDMI ports. My computer has an HDMI port and I wouldn't dream of that making my chromecast redundant.

Any way to send vlc to chromecast?

Edit: This is great, btw. Thanks, fomojola!

If it was for Linux I'd gladly give it a spin.

It will be available for Linux (at least Ubuntu): I just need to brush off my old scripts for generating .deb packages and I'll have something. Just didn't want to dawdle and let it fall into my pile of neglected projects.

Would something like https://github.com/jordansissel/fpm help?

Indeed it could: thanks!

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