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

http://www.roguesavant.com/bigscreen/

by fomojola • 12 years ago

62 37 12 years ago

fomojola9• 12 years ago

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!

vikramhaer• 12 years ago

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

fomojola9• 12 years ago

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.

neeks2• 12 years ago

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

fomojola9• 12 years ago

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.

ehPReth• 12 years ago

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

mumrah4• 12 years ago

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!

fomojola9• 12 years ago

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.

thefreeman4• 12 years ago

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.

j_s• 12 years ago

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

https://github.com/spouliot/airplay

thefreeman4• 12 years ago

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.

fomojola9• 12 years ago

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.

CSDude• 12 years ago

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.

fomojola9• 12 years ago

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.

aroch• 12 years ago

Or use Plex or XBMC and control it from your smartphone

fomojola9• 12 years ago

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.

slouch• 12 years ago

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?

nickpapa• 12 years ago

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

tmuir3• 12 years ago

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

mrbill• 12 years ago

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

neeks2• 12 years ago

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.

DinkMeeker• 12 years ago

Not if you buy them from Apple.

mumrah4• 12 years ago

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

tmuir3• 12 years ago

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.

sanderjd2• 12 years ago

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

tmuir3• 12 years ago

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?

siculars• 12 years ago

Any way to send vlc to chromecast?

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

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

Related Stories