Saturday, March 8, 2014

Chromecast URL Player

I was annoyed by the fact that the Chromecast SDK has been out for the public for quite a while and yet googling for a simple URL player for Chromecast did not yield satisfactory results. So I sat down to create my own simple web app for playing back any http video or viewing any still image in Chromecast.

URL: http://movies.foamsnet.com

Source Code: https://github.com/vickyg3/UrlPlayer

Would love to hear feedback. Feel free to fork, send pull requests.


-Vignesh
Posted by Unknown at 9:16 AM
Labels: , , , , , ,

25 comments:

  1. Paul ArterburnMarch 9, 2014 at 2:13 AM

    Hey Vignesh- this already exists at https://dabble.me/cast. It was something I threw together just hours after the SDK was released. Mashable picked it up, too: http://mashable.com/2014/02/05/vidcast-chromecast-app/

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    1. UnknownMarch 9, 2014 at 2:27 AM

      thanks for pointing this out. could you try adding some keywords so that it shows up on the first page in google results for queries like "chromecast url player" etc. not being able to find this on google is exactly why i wrote this. :-)

      Delete
    2. UnknownMarch 9, 2014 at 2:28 AM

      also, is vidcast open source?

      Delete
    3. AnonymousMarch 9, 2014 at 2:36 AM

      You didn't find it because "URL player" doesn't make any sense. Every possible thing the Chromecast is going to play is going to use a URL.

      Delete
    4. UnknownMarch 9, 2014 at 2:38 AM

      i need to an app that can "play a URL" which i have in my hand. "URL Player" is a perfectly valid query for that. If it does not make sense to you, not really my problem.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousMarch 9, 2014 at 6:32 AM

    I second that "URL Player" doesn't make much sense. Furthermore, I move that having an URL "in my hand" doesn't make much sense either.

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    1. UnknownMarch 9, 2014 at 1:08 PM

      Can we please stop with this grammar nazi non sense. If you think it doesn't make sense then don't use the app. Many are finding it useful. So feel free to use whatever makes sense to you.

      Delete
    2. Illuminati Ganga Operative PersonaMarch 9, 2014 at 4:11 PM

      vernacular usage often does not make any sense, but having something at hand or in ones hand even if it is just used to mean having one conveniently available is a common usage.

      Delete
  3. AnonymousMarch 9, 2014 at 8:35 AM

    @anonymous - In the right context makes sense to me. Maybe English is not your first language?

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    1. UnknownMarch 9, 2014 at 1:10 PM

      Thanks for the comment. I know ypu didn't start it, But let us please not encourage unnecesary conversations that doesn't add any value to the topic. :-)

      Delete
  4. Munk-in-a-sackMarch 9, 2014 at 8:39 AM

    Vignesh, This is exactly what I was looking for! I have a bunch of videos files loaded on Amazon's AWS: s3.lucastream.com. I was looking for an easy casting page to paste my urls then send them over to the Chromecast. (I'm inexperienced and too lazy to code my own)
    Though, I like Paul's dabble.me/cast, I find that his code is hit or miss on picking up my urls (All of which are url.com/video.mp4 format).
    I copy/pasted your work for my personal use at cast.lucastream.com.
    Requests-
    Volume adjustment! Increment/decrement by .1?

    Cheers!

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    1. UnknownMarch 9, 2014 at 1:06 PM

      Great. Glad it helps. I am working on adding volume controls support. I will push it soon. Watch put for it!

      Delete
  5. UnknownMarch 10, 2014 at 6:26 AM

    Volume control support is now in.

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  6. AnonymousMarch 10, 2014 at 5:10 PM

    Hey, great code, I knew about VidCast and although it has the edge in simplicity by having a bookmarklet to make it easier to find the video URL and you can control the location of the where you want to be in a video with a seek bar, I have not found the source code for VidCast so I am really happy you decided to offer your code.

    If there is one thing I would ask for though, is if it would be possible to trick the Chromecast into playing local files through file URLs instead of http(s) URLs?

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    1. UnknownMarch 10, 2014 at 9:45 PM

      One workaround to play a local file using this is to install a web server on the local machine and point to the file using: http:///filename.mp4

      Delete
  7. Dom FinnMarch 12, 2014 at 12:32 AM

    Great job thanks!!

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  8. AnonymousApril 10, 2014 at 2:13 PM

    cool - thanks for sharing - it works for me like expected :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. HugoApril 22, 2014 at 12:11 AM

    Thank you so much .. I was struggling myself using the Chrome to cast a Tab and that consumes a lot of my processor.. then I deiced to look for a player for just an URL and here I am very happy =D

    Just a question ... will you plan in a near future to implement subtitles?

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    1. UnknownApril 22, 2014 at 1:43 AM

      yes, i'm working on implementing subtitles. will publish soon.

      Delete
  10. AnonymousApril 30, 2014 at 3:04 PM

    Hi,

    Thanks a lot for this url player and especially for releasing the source!

    You should add m4v as allowed content type as Chromecast plays these file without problems.

    Martin

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    1. UnknownMay 3, 2014 at 12:57 PM

      that's a good point. thanks for pointing it out. added here: https://github.com/vickyg3/UrlPlayer/commit/e6faba066396e0dad99bf05f5753ae4ff8a8289f

      Delete
  11. darkpolloMay 8, 2014 at 1:39 AM

    Hi, great app!
    Is it possible to stream .ts or .asf files?
    Thanks!

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    1. UnknownMay 8, 2014 at 10:11 PM

      thanks!

      Unfortunately only mp4 and mkv files are supported for now. You can convert your .ts and .asf files into one of the formats supported by chromecast using a tool like ffmpeg ( http://ffmpeg.org/download.html ).

      Delete

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