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NymphCast – Open-source Chromecast Alternative
- tmikaeld 5y agoSomeone got really tired of there not being any good complete cross platform streaming alternatives to Chromecast ;-) That's a huge amount of effort between, love it!
- tucosan 5y agoNow, that's an esoteric choice of language. I'm curious about the rationale to chose Angelscript over the more common scripting languages.
- breakingcups 5y agoI've only ever seen Angelscript used in an extension to a 22-year old game. AFAIK it's purely interpreted and mostly just very simple to integrate. (And somewhat more secure by default because it's so simple and interpreted) Any serious product using it which depends somewhat on performance should probably integrate V8 or something similar instead. The Angelscript language is very similar to Javascript etc. but so niche that you'll keep having to look stuff up.
- tucosan 5y agoIt will also be more difficult to find contributors.
- solarkraft 5y agoIIRC Maya has responded to this with something along the lines of “It’s a pet project and I like AngelScript”, which I’d deem fair.
- forgotpwd16 5y agoAlthough often confused, the term Chromecast refers[0] to the product brand. The protocol is called[0] Google Cast. This is an open-source alternative to the software and the protocol (as it isn't a Cast implementation) rather the hardware. [0]: https://developers.google.com/cast/glossary#c https://developers.google.com/cast/glossary#c
- StavrosK 5y agoThis is excellent, finally we'll be able to cast to Raspberry Pis and other Linux-running computers. Well done!
- akent 5y agoWill we? Seems like it's an entirely different protocol from Google Cast?
- ekianjo 5y agoYou didn't really have to wait, you could do the same thing with Jellyfin already and any Linux device on your network using jellyfin-mpv-shim
- StavrosK 5y agoDoes that expose a Cast device? That's very interesting.
- kokx 5y agoIt doesn't expose a Google Cast device. It only allows streaming media from a Jellyfin instance to that device.
- StavrosK 5y agoOh, then it's very different from what I want...
- icebraining 5y agoCheck out Kodi plus the TubeCast add-on. I can cast stuff from the official YouTube app for Android into my Raspberry.
- kingosticks 5y agoWhat exactly do you want? If you want to have some device appear in the target list when using google cast in apps then I think you are stuck waiting for Google to (never) open that up. Edit: although maybe some apps still support DIAL and that might be an option.
- mongol 5y agoIs this a completely independent effort or is it piggybacking on DLNA?
- MikusR 5y agoIt has nothing to do with DLNA or Chromecast. It's pure Not Invented Here stuff.
- zibzab 5y agoBut this is still dependent in Google hardware and firmware? To be more specific, I will need to "onboard" a fresh chromecast into my network with Google Home before i can use this?
- worldsayshi 5y agoWhere does it say that?
- ekianjo 5y ago> software solution which turns your choice of Linux-capable hardware into an audio and video source for a television or powered speakers That's literally the first line in the repo description.
- bronco21016 5y agoAs many other commenters point out, I’m confused what this actually does? Does this allow me to turn a SBC into a Chromecast? Meaning, do I install this on a SBC, or any Linux machine, and magically I can cast YouTube to it from my phone? The README could use a quick FAQ of what this repo can and cannot do as it relates to the Chromecast/Google Cast ecosystem since they’re using that brand name in the description.
- sofixa 5y agoAs far as i understand it, no. It allows to turn hardware running Linux ( like a Pi) into a Chromecast ( the dongle), to which you can stream video/audio from another device ( but not compatible with Google's protocol, so you can't click on YouTube's cast button to use it, you need extra software)
- encryptluks2 5y agoSo then this is the same as Kodi, Plex, etc
- akvadrako 5y agoNo, it operates just like a Chromecast, but with a different protocol.
- encryptluks2 5y agoThis is a joke, right? If it requires a Raspberry Pi then it is not different than Kodi or wherever else that supports the same functionality. I feel like the authors here reinvented fire and then are refusing to acknowledge or admit that it has already been done.
- akvadrako 5y agoHow do you cast a movie from your laptop to Kodi?
- soul4krsna 5y agoTerrible name. Nympho thoughts any one?
- alias_neo 5y agoThere is clearly a lot of misunderstanding in the comments here. I feel like the repository is causing confusion by referring to Chromecast. This has nothing to do with Chromecast, nor does it have anything to do with Google Cast, nor will it let or help you "Cast" anything like YouTube to your Cast capable devices. What this is, is an (early) software implementation to stream media from a control device (your phone etc) to an SBC or other machine running the server code, and connected to a TV or monitor. It appears that the media must be resident on the controller and not the server. It looks like they're aiming for multiple targets with "good" synchronisation, whatever that means. Looks like a nice toy project for someone but there seem to be far more mature tools out there, at least for multi-room audio. For video, if you don't need sync, Jellyfin (libre Emby fork) is quite capable.
- akvadrako 5y agoYou say this has nothing to do with Chromecast and then describe the #1 use-case for casting, to play movies that sit on your device (phone, laptop) on your TV. Jellyfin, based on their website, looks like just another media server.
- xenomachina 5y ago> the #1 use-case for casting, to play movies that sit on your device (phone, laptop) on your TV Is it really, though? I've used "casting" many times, and it was always to cast something that was "on the cloud", never something that was on my phone, to my TV. For example, it's a lot easier to find a specific YouTube video with my phone than with my TV remote.
- taylorius 5y agoSounds cool, though "nymph" gives it a vaguely erotic vibe, which might not be what you're after.
- _pmf_ 5y agoI think the "cast" makes the association with fly fishing obvious enough.
- Exuma 5y agoThat is in no way obvious, lol.
- ohyeshedid 5y agoI would say it's more obvious than confusing it with something erotic.
- saagarjha 5y agoPast discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22457351 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22457351
- _Microft 5y agoJust bringing this open source audio streaming solution also to your attention. It says that it supports Snapcast, Spotifyd / Spotify Connect, Shairport Sync / AirPlay and can act as a PulseAudio Sink: https://cast.otter.jetzt/ https://cast.otter.jetzt/ According to one of its creators, the device can be ordered partially pre-assembled for $10 and requires additional parts worth another $10 to be soldered on by yourself. https://twitter.com/JanHenrikH/status/1374098303470682113 https://twitter.com/JanHenrikH/status/1374098303470682113
- zozbot234 5y agohttps://github.com/albfan/miraclecast https://github.com/albfan/miraclecast might be an interesting alternative, based on the widespread Miracast standard. No idea how up-to-daye that codebase is, though.
- kingosticks 5y agoTechnically it might be an "open-source Google Cast" alternative but it's definitely not an "Open-source Chromecast" alternative. If it was, I would be able to open any app that supports Google Cast and control a device running this software like I can control a Chromecast. But it doesn't support that, and that's what most people are expecting/wanting. It might be a great project but it's not able to provide the tight integration that makes Google Cast so good. And this title is misleading.
- akvadrako 5y agoOn the contrary, an open alternative to Google Cast is very welcome and much better than a Chomecast clone. The protocol is not very good so trying to re-implement it is just asking for trouble.
- crispyporkbites 5y agoYes but it’s unusable in 99% of apps, so it doesn’t matter how technically brilliant it is
- akvadrako 5y agoChromecast is also unusable for 99% of apps. On Linux, there is no reliable way to use it to play movies with embedded subtitles on your TV. Probably because the protocol is too hard to implement.
- oneplane 5y agoYet Linux is not 99% of the apps, 99% of the apps are the Android and iOS apps used by billions of users.
- colordrops 5y agoAnd even better would be to support the Google Cast protocol to increase adoption while offering a roadmap to transition to a better protocol.
- gizdan 5y agoI'm curious. Usually when something like an open source alternative to a product is highly sought after feature, someone will often attempt to reverse engineer the apis or something mostly so it works with the current ecosystem. What has made Google Cast so resistant to this? I can't imagine the protocol being a complex one. Does anyone know?
- ghostly_s 5y agofrom what I've heard it's actually quite complex, using different "streaming" strategies (often not streaming from the source device at all, but instead loading the desired content directly on the chromecast device) depending on the nature of the content.
- monocasa 5y agoIIRC there's also a per sink device signature verification scheme inherent in the protocol as the devices check in to Google's backend that makes it nearly impossible to just spin up arbitrary sink devices. Google has to have known about the device's public key before they'll talk to it, and it requires their backend fundamentally to work. That key association is probably a manufacturing step that we're not privy to.
- jrm4 5y agoI thought this might have been the thing I'm looking for; relatively painless screencasting or sharing from a local (Linux) PC to another device on the network (e.g. Raspberry Pi + Big Screen TV). The use case isn't necessarily full motion video + audio, but more for business/conference room type use, where response time isn't wildly important, since it's something like a whiteboard. Monitor-over-network would be great too, but not a requirement; I'm aware that solutions exist, but so far everything I've tried has been painfully clunky.
- betwixthewires 5y agoI'm still looking for a VLC plugin that let's you stream to VLC via UPNP/DLNA. If that existed you could basically turn any raspberry pi into a Chromecast using your distro of choice and VLC.
- MikusR 5y agoYou can do it using your distro of choice and KODI.
- betwixthewires 5y agoYeah and I used to use that, but it is a pain. If all you're doing is sending video from another device like you would with a Chromecast, all the features that come bundled in Kodi are bloat.
- squarefoot 5y agoI don't understand the point behind "casting" something in a home environment, unless one keeps the client unsupervised. It could make sense in contexts where say one or more unsupervised signage displays are connected to small embedded boards that throw at the screens whatever feed is being streamed to them. That would be ok, but what about home environments? Let me give an example. I keep all my media in a home NAS (Nas4Free plus RAID etc.) as simple files (mpeg4 etc.). My home TV is connected to a RPi running Kodi that accesses the file list through SMB/NFS shares, as every other computer in the house. If I want to watch a movie, I use Kodi to navigate the file list until I find the relevant file and play it. There are no downsides since it's a one click solution, and the pretty good CEC support by Kodi and the RPi makes it a breeze (one single remote for both the TV and Kodi) but this way the file is being transcoded by the player (the RPi) and not by the streming hardware, which would be an often less powerful platform like a NAS. This also means the streamed content travels as compressed packets through the network, in fact loading it a lot less than for example it would happen when streaming it after transcoding. As a result, I could have like 10 machines watching each one its own Full HD movie on a home wired network, which would be unthinkable if the poor NAS had to transcode all of them on the fly, not to mention the much heavier network load. So the question is: what's the point in streaming in home environments rather than navigating file shares?
- sbochins 5y agoIf you have multiple smart TVs in your house, it’s simpler to have a single media server and connect to it via the smart TV software.
- squarefoot 5y agoMy example was with each Smart TV / PC / Media Box, etc. watching different programmes at the same time from the same NAS. By treating everything as a file it is being sent as compressed therefore not loading excessively the NAS or clogging the network with much higher bitrates.
- seized 5y agoProper security, phones on a different VLAN. No Bluetooth nonsense with notification sounds. Better sorting via software like Plex or something else, then casting that stream to something else. Casting doesn't mean transcoding either. Casting to a group of devices that stays in sync. My Chromecast Audios will be online for a very long time.
- matthewfcarlson 5y agoCompletely unrelated but I would love a CLI/GUI type tool on my laptop that I could control a youtube client with. Most youtube clients on smart TV's, consoles, and streaming sticks support being controlled by a phone. I'd love to control it from my laptop instead of solely my phone.
- dragonwriter 5y agoIf your stick uses Google Cast, one app meeting that description is “the Youtube website”.
- matthewfcarlson 5y agoI think only if you're using the Google Chrome browser...