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Fun fact: There was a guy who managed to extract the keys out of one of the earlier Chromecasts. He eventually stopped working on (or at least posting on XDA ab

Fun fact: There was a guy who managed to extract the keys out of one of the earlier Chromecasts. He eventually stopped working on (or at least posting on XDA about) it because he was hired by Google. There isn’t really any decent open casting protocol with adoption. DLNA (UPnP) is pretty well implemented in proprietary devices (besides uncontrollable latency up to 10s on Samsung TVs), but there are neither decent free receiver implementations nor many control options (other than that the concept isn’t bad). Google Cast is smart (with its „we‘ll just give you a whole browser“ concept) and AirPlay works excellently well. Both are proprietary (guess I’m lucky to have both a Macbook and a Samsung TV).

rickdeckard 2y ago
Yeah, I was following that activity, but as it's key-based Google simply revoked the keys and devices would no longer stream to it. There used to be a solution to extract the key from your own Chromecast to simply use it for your own purposes. But then they evolved the protocol to Cast_v2 which IIRC had more hardened security, so it's just a matter of time until they stopped supporting v1 and simply lock out all devices. It's a pity, because it would be great to push content to custom receivers in your house (i.e. send a YouTube link to a Squeezebox server)
mijoharas 2y ago
miracast is open isn't it, and has reasonable adoption from smart-TVs? (I think everyone has their own slightly incompatible versions of it though.) [EDIT] I've just seen discussion on why it's not equivalent in response to this comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41171297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41171297
- kevincox 2y ago
  A nice feature of Chromecast is that the device was really just a remote control. After starting a show it would continue even if your phone caught fire. This is obviously great for battery life but also means that multiple people can control the media (works great for YouTube where multiple people can queue videos, play, pause, etc...) I would love to see something like Chromecast but open. 1. MDNS to find the display. 2. Send a URL to display. 3. Devices can send messages (with some way to tell them appart for security reasons, probably require and explicit opt-in to receive messages from non-initiator devi This is similar to the current protocol except step 2 is to send an app ID registered and approved by Google rather than an arbitrary URL. (Or some pre-made apps for things like playing a video from a URL or screen mirroring) RIP Mozilla Matchstick
  - vel0city 2y ago
    This already exists and is what casting was originally based off. DIAL.
    - kevincox 2y ago
      > To ensure that the correct name for each application is well-defined and to avoid naming conflicts, Application Names must be registered in the DIAL Registry. From https://www.dial-multiscreen.org/dial/protocol-specification https://www.dial-multiscreen.org/dial/protocol-specification v2.2.1 This has exactly the same "pre approved" list problem as Chromecast. But it is actually worse because you can only launch apps that are already installed on the device. (Better in some ways because there may be advantages to native apps, but worse for openness and small competitors)
aidenn0 2y ago
DLNA is an okay concept, but codec support is all over the place. I've yet to run into a device that doesn't support MPEG-2 MP/ML, and all devices support something above that, but there's not a single codec and profile that has sufficiently widespread support for HD video.

rickdeckard 2y ago

Yeah, I was following that activity, but as it's key-based Google simply revoked the keys and devices would no longer stream to it. There used to be a solution to extract the key from your own Chromecast to simply use it for your own purposes. But then they evolved the protocol to Cast_v2 which IIRC had more hardened security, so it's just a matter of time until they stopped supporting v1 and simply lock out all devices. It's a pity, because it would be great to push content to custom receivers in your house (i.e. send a YouTube link to a Squeezebox server)

mijoharas 2y ago

miracast is open isn't it, and has reasonable adoption from smart-TVs? (I think everyone has their own slightly incompatible versions of it though.) [EDIT] I've just seen discussion on why it's not equivalent in response to this comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41171297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41171297

kevincox 2y ago
A nice feature of Chromecast is that the device was really just a remote control. After starting a show it would continue even if your phone caught fire. This is obviously great for battery life but also means that multiple people can control the media (works great for YouTube where multiple people can queue videos, play, pause, etc...) I would love to see something like Chromecast but open. 1. MDNS to find the display. 2. Send a URL to display. 3. Devices can send messages (with some way to tell them appart for security reasons, probably require and explicit opt-in to receive messages from non-initiator devi This is similar to the current protocol except step 2 is to send an app ID registered and approved by Google rather than an arbitrary URL. (Or some pre-made apps for things like playing a video from a URL or screen mirroring) RIP Mozilla Matchstick
- vel0city 2y ago
  This already exists and is what casting was originally based off. DIAL.
  - kevincox 2y ago
    > To ensure that the correct name for each application is well-defined and to avoid naming conflicts, Application Names must be registered in the DIAL Registry. From https://www.dial-multiscreen.org/dial/protocol-specification https://www.dial-multiscreen.org/dial/protocol-specification v2.2.1 This has exactly the same "pre approved" list problem as Chromecast. But it is actually worse because you can only launch apps that are already installed on the device. (Better in some ways because there may be advantages to native apps, but worse for openness and small competitors)

aidenn0 2y ago

DLNA is an okay concept, but codec support is all over the place. I've yet to run into a device that doesn't support MPEG-2 MP/ML, and all devices support something above that, but there's not a single codec and profile that has sufficiently widespread support for HD video.