cast-localvideo

Plays Local videos at your computer on your Chromecast. Beta for now.

Requirements

1. A reachable Chromecast on your network, no client isolation in your router etc.
2. Chrome Browser version 32 or later
3. Cast extension in Chrome Store
4. NodeJS v0.10+
5. FFMpeg installed and reachable in PATH (Windows guide)
6. A fast enough home interconnection network

Installation and Use

• On a terminal, do the following:

# If you need to install FFMpeg on a mac
# libvo-aacenc is the default codec for streaming to the chromecast
$ brew install ffmpeg --with-libvo-aacenc

# OR Use "Download ZIP" button.
$ git clone https://github.com/mustafaakin/cast-localvideo.git
$ cd cast-localvideo
$ npm install
$ node app

• In Chrome, go to http://localhost:8000. You will see your folders (just change the folder to / on Linux & Mac). There is no root concept in Windows as in Unix, so if you wish to use another drive, just use D:

• Navigate through your folders to locate a video.

• Select the video and you will see the metadata if it is available in the file. (It currently shows all extensions, does not check if it is really a video file)

• Click play local to test to see if it plays on Chrome. Note that it plays very fast after some seconds, because Chrome cannot detect its length. It may be a bug, see this Stackoverflow Question to help solving this.

• Click the "Cast to Chromecast" button to play the video on your Chromecast. It will plays normally, at its normal speed.

• Check the terminal to see if any errors were thrown. Sometimes FFmpeg can not handle the video and as a result it will crash.

Note

I developed this on Windows, on my parents computer remotely via TeamViewer. It is not feature complete, but it is easy to add features. Any pull requests and forks are welcome.

TODOs

1. Be able to pause/resume content.
2. Solve the duration bug.
3. Make use of the session feature of the Cast API to remember what is playing even if the server is down.
4. Package it as a nice application for end users.
5. Embed subtitles via FFMpeg.
6. Resize the videos if they are too big.
7. Options to change encoding options.

Contact

Contact mustafa91 at gmail for any questions. My website is here.