Serviio

Hi!

I have a running version of Serviio on my home computer and my Samsung SmartTV is able to directly play the videos from it.

I have another (not so smart ) TV and I was thinking of buying a Chromecast in order to make it smarter

My question is the following: Will the Chromecast be able to directly see (obviously after it has been configured and connected to the home network) the Serviio DLNA Server and directly play the movies or do I need an application either on my Android phone or tablet in order to instruct from it the Chromecast what to play and from where?

Is there something else besides Chromecast (e.g. Roku, EzCast, etc.) that I could buy in order to make the whole process very simple and direct?

You see my parents are using the older TV and it's not so easy to teach them everything....

Regards

Hope I am not too late. But you will need to have an application on your device to set up the initial stream.

The way Chromecast works is that you initially start playing the video on the mobile device. When you start to cast the video it configures the Chromecast to pick everything up from the source stream, in this case Serviio. However ChromeCast can only recognise a number of formats. AVI, MP4, and audio. AC3-DTS does not work.

You will need to have a ChromeCast compatible application for the 'casting' to happen. If you are on Android there are a number of Applications available. The ones I have tested with Chromecast is Bubble UPNP. There is a accompanying server app that works in with Serviio to transcode to the client.

On iOS I am using GoodPlayer (which is paid) although there is another one that is free that is being worked on called Streambels. They have a Android version too.

I hope this helps.

Kind reagards,

Wei-Yen

Will is working on a Chromecast support for ServiiGo too

@zip: So ServiiGo will eventually support Chromecast right?

@weiyentan: Since Chromecast doesn't support many formats do you know any other device that for the moment supports the majority of formats?

Best

Yes it will.

For anyone interested in playing, I have managed to get Serviio MediaBrowser on IoS to cast to Chromecast (well indirectly at least).

I have used an App called "Video and TV Cast" which presents as a Web browser interface: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/video-t ... 05413?mt=8. Simply enter the MediaBrowser URL in the apps address bar and use MediaBrowser as normal. When you select a video, the bottom status bar will prompt you to cast to your Chromecast.

This is not a recommendation or endorsement for this product - firstly its early days of me playing with it, but also its rather clunky. Once you start casting, other than pause you have no control - the free version doesn't have scrubbing or forward/rewind. You cannot seem to stop casting without disconnecting from the Chromecast. There is no volume control. The app is riddled with ads (I'm trialling so on the free version). Its also slow - navigating in Mediabrowser is slow, so I'm not sure what its doing in the background or whether it's accessing a central site. Also the playlist in Mediabrowser doesn't appear when selecting a video.

But for now, it may be OK for people until Mediabrowser gets casting natively or for people like me that like to play. Seems to be playing all my videos so far (but not extensively tested).

Thx for letting us know!

Any news on the ServiioGo and Chromecast?

Best

Details are all in the ServiiGo thread. Currently you have to explicitly enable it as it's not finished yet.

viewtopic.php?p=96696#p96696

Oooh!! Great!!

Thanks a lot Will!

Regards

BubbleUPnP gets my recommendation, too - I use it when I'm at home, the free version is pretty powerful and allows you to play anything from your libraries (including Serviio if it has discovered it) to any compatible "renderer" on the network - mine picks up both my Chromecast and my Samsung TV.

If you've an Android phone I'd recommend giving at a try for sure.