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Why doesn't VLC have good support for casting? I mean LAN is in the name - I shouldn't have to use a half-baked Chromecast solution that's proprietary, can't be

Why doesn't VLC have good support for casting? I mean LAN is in the name - I shouldn't have to use a half-baked Chromecast solution that's proprietary, can't be a server and can't display most subtitles.

jbk 6y ago
Because Chromecast is not done for push, but for pull. And because noone cares enough to fix it, I would guess...
- jimmaswell 6y ago
  > Chromecast is not done for push, but for pull. What does this mean?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Moru 6y ago
    Push = you at the computer pushing something to the TV. Pull = you at the surfpad, pulling from the computer.
- akvadrako 6y ago
  Casting is all about push
  - rakoo 6y ago
    No, your chromecast downloads and runs a webapp, and you give instructions about what to play from your computer/phone. That's hlw you can play a webradio and turn off your phone for example
    - akvadrako 6y ago
      That's an implementation detail and doesn't say anything about casting in general.
      - rakoo 6y ago
        The discussion is not about casting in general, it's about chromecast
        akvadrako 6y ago
        I started it and I asked about casting in general. Chromecast is the only type of casting VLC supports; because of that I think its not living up to it's name.
saagarjha 6y ago
Casting is generally hard; the protocols are undocumented and proprietary in general and are usually quite limited in the formats they support and function in ways that are not necessarily conducive to casting content that isn't hosted on the web.
- akvadrako 6y ago
  It wouldn't be that hard to make an open casting protocol.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    It wouldn't, but people want to cast to devices they already have. Getting manufacturers (and other software makers) on board is not easy…
    - akvadrako 6y ago
      Personally I would buy any device that offered a working casting solution for VLC.
      - hunter2_ 6y ago
        I haven't tried Windows or Linux versions of VLC in a long time, but the "Renderer" option in macOS VLC seems to work well. Unrelated: Have you tried catt? https://github.com/skorokithakis/catt https://github.com/skorokithakis/catt
        akvadrako 6y ago
        I have tried the renderer - it's buggy and doesn't support embedded subtitles which I almost always use. Same thing with catt, which also suffers from having a poor UI.
- fuzzfactor 6y ago
  In the 1990's there was a communication protocol named VideoLAN which was apparently intended to send video over ethernet faster than regular ethernet would do, I found it used in professional print mastering where the large-format printer(s) which printed the masters were connected to an NT3.x server by VideoLAN using ethernet cable, then a second NIC having regular ethernet drivers connected the NT box to the artists' network who were using Apples. With the amount of data they were sending in one direction once it got started, they were really streaming and apparently multicast was a click away when you wanted all the printers to print the same thing at the same time. Naturally this was well over 20 years ago, but I imagine there was some nice wizardry to get old computers to perform so much better than they could as office machines. Probably still have that driver somewhere, IIRC the driver would install in XP (but only to one of the few NICs in the INF file) but the pro printer app did not have an XP version and even the NT4 version would not install in W2k or Wxp.

jbk 6y ago

Because Chromecast is not done for push, but for pull. And because noone cares enough to fix it, I would guess...

jimmaswell 6y ago
> Chromecast is not done for push, but for pull. What does this mean?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Moru 6y ago
  Push = you at the computer pushing something to the TV. Pull = you at the surfpad, pulling from the computer.
akvadrako 6y ago
Casting is all about push
- rakoo 6y ago
  No, your chromecast downloads and runs a webapp, and you give instructions about what to play from your computer/phone. That's hlw you can play a webradio and turn off your phone for example
  - akvadrako 6y ago
    That's an implementation detail and doesn't say anything about casting in general.
    - rakoo 6y ago
      The discussion is not about casting in general, it's about chromecast
      - akvadrako 6y ago
        I started it and I asked about casting in general. Chromecast is the only type of casting VLC supports; because of that I think its not living up to it's name.

saagarjha 6y ago

Casting is generally hard; the protocols are undocumented and proprietary in general and are usually quite limited in the formats they support and function in ways that are not necessarily conducive to casting content that isn't hosted on the web.

akvadrako 6y ago
It wouldn't be that hard to make an open casting protocol.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  It wouldn't, but people want to cast to devices they already have. Getting manufacturers (and other software makers) on board is not easy…
  - akvadrako 6y ago
    Personally I would buy any device that offered a working casting solution for VLC.
    - hunter2_ 6y ago
      I haven't tried Windows or Linux versions of VLC in a long time, but the "Renderer" option in macOS VLC seems to work well. Unrelated: Have you tried catt? https://github.com/skorokithakis/catt https://github.com/skorokithakis/catt
      - akvadrako 6y ago
        I have tried the renderer - it's buggy and doesn't support embedded subtitles which I almost always use. Same thing with catt, which also suffers from having a poor UI.
fuzzfactor 6y ago
In the 1990's there was a communication protocol named VideoLAN which was apparently intended to send video over ethernet faster than regular ethernet would do, I found it used in professional print mastering where the large-format printer(s) which printed the masters were connected to an NT3.x server by VideoLAN using ethernet cable, then a second NIC having regular ethernet drivers connected the NT box to the artists' network who were using Apples. With the amount of data they were sending in one direction once it got started, they were really streaming and apparently multicast was a click away when you wanted all the printers to print the same thing at the same time. Naturally this was well over 20 years ago, but I imagine there was some nice wizardry to get old computers to perform so much better than they could as office machines. Probably still have that driver somewhere, IIRC the driver would install in XP (but only to one of the few NICs in the INF file) but the pro printer app did not have an XP version and even the NT4 version would not install in W2k or Wxp.