Google Chromecast Support

[Cessquill]

Google recently announced Chromecast (http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/chromecast/), which looks like it could offer a lot of functionality (use a handset/tablet to get it to stream content from YouTube, NetFlix, Google Movies, etc.).

It's very early days yet, and I don't know if it would even be possible, but the ability to browse an EPG from a tablet/handset/browser and stream to Chromecast would be pretty interesting.

If other things were also possible with the Chromecast (ability to stream from NAS drives), this could mean that one no longer needs to run a HTPC/Raspberry Pi at every set, just a HDMI dongle.

[Mister44]

+ 1

I also would like to have this feature where you're able to stream the TV signal from the DVBLinkServer (in my case running on a QNAP NAS) to the Chromecast Stick.

[Cessquill]

They seem to be opening up the SDK a bit, so it might be possible to instruct the Chromecast to play a web stream from a handset, only the address would be on the internal network. Obviously it's not as simple as that, but in theory it looks plausible.

[Mister44]

Yeah, it must be possible since the guys from Plex (http://elan.plexapp.com/2013/12/06/plex ... -official/) are able to play content from a local NAS on the Chromestick

[Poppax]

+ 1

would be really awesome - we need good clients for the big screen.

Dvblink has many good clients for tablets - but not for the big screen - this would combine both worlds

[xxxhonyyy]

I've recently tested Chromecast with Plex and it's really great! Well, it still needs some fine tunning on Plex side but it's already not bad at all. To be frank, the picture is not 100% on a big plazma TV but for the cost and the flexibility it gives to every single screen with HDMI - great!!! and it would get DVBlogic many new funs I'm sure

At the same time... the streaming is already done on Plex... so come on... get some decent frond-end done on Plex!!! The plug-in I saw "working" some time ago.... not great! too slow, etc.

[Cessquill]

Chromecast officially released in Europe/Canada - I've got one on order from Amazon UK. Might finally get me to take out a Netflix sub and drop HTPC / Pi devices. Especially if it can be supported by DVB Logic.

[Cessquill]

I do hope this is addressed. After looking at it some more ti would seem that it's possible straight away if you could set the DLNA stream to be something that the Chromecast supports. I've got BubbleUPnP to find the DLNA service, but when I try and stream it, it won't play. I'm assuming something like MPEG isn't supported on the Chromecast.

[ernstbernst]

What is the latest update on this? I am also very keen on getting support in the official apps for Chromecast.

Can we get a denial or confirmation from Oberon if this is something you indeed are looking at?

[Oberon]

We will be investigating adding ChromeCast support.

[ernstbernst]

Thank you very much for your response!

[DSD]

We will be investigating adding ChromeCast support.

Anymore info regarding chromecast support?

It would be great to be able to cast a TV stream to the TV instead of watching it on the mobile or tablet.

[sh0dan]

In case its of interest to anyone or anyone can help me, I had a quick play and got stuck...

A lot of this is based on assumptions as I don't have time to do massive amounts of research. Please correct me where I'm wrong.

I really want to stream natively in MPEG2-TS. The new beta player library (https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/player) seems to support this via MPEG-DASH, so I naively tried hooking a stream up to a custom receiver app that executes "cast.player.api.CreateDashStreamingProtocol(host)". Having sent a url of "http://x.x.x.x:8081/dvblink/direct?client=TestClient&channel=10040000" via a custom chrome sender app. Nothing, a black screen and no errors in the chromecast console. If I point it at a public stream on the internet it works.

Its also worth noting that I had to use a reverse proxy to get around CORS (https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/player). I don't think I can place an xml file at "http://x.x.x.x:8081" so it was the only way of getting the custom receiver to attempt a connection to the stream. The reverse proxy made it look like the custom receiver html was on the same address and port as the stream. I confirmed that the reverse proxy worked with the tv stream by running the proxied url through VLC.

I then tried requesting a HLS stream with transcoding via c# and feeding the returned url to the custom receiver app via the sender app, again a black screen and no errors in the chromecast console.

"provider.PlayChannel(new RequestStream("x.x.x.x", int.Parse(channel.ID), clientId, RequestStream.IPHONE_TYPE, new Transcoder(1280, 768, 4048, "eng")));"

I can confirm that the Plex add in works ok via chromecast and with transcoding in Plex, but again I don't really want the hit of transcoding.

[sh0dan]

I'll keep looking to see if I can find something to convert the DvbLink MPEG 2 TS stream to an MPEG-DASH stream with TS segments. I'm not really sure if any of this is right, but its worth a go.

Any help would be gratefully received.

Thanks!

[Oberon]

Thanks for your investigation. AFAIK Chromecast only supports h264 video, so you will not be able to get mpeg-2 channels on chromecast using direct streaming. For those channels you will need transcoding.

Furthermore, you can try the following link to play transcoded channels in mp4 format (which is natively supported by Chromecast):
http://x.x.x.x:8101/dvblink/direct?clie ... trate=1024