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+---- Thread: Google Cast (Chromecast Audio) "play to" with output to multi-room group? (/showthread.php?tid=282074)
Google Cast (Chromecast Audio) "play to" with output to multi-room group? - RockerC - 2016-07-08
Any chance that we could get Kodi to send its music playback output to Chromecast Audio cast recievers on your home (Wi-Fi) network via a "play to" feature?
Note! I am only asking to support audio output via Google Cast protocol as supported by "Chromecast Audio" reciever dongles (and not support Chromecast video output or recieving).
Why you ask? The two awesome things about Chromecast Audio dongels is that they are cheap and support grouping for multi-room syncronization over WiFi. That is so called "whole house audio" (distributed audio) that allow for playback and control of music throughout mutiple rooms or even an entire home or building.
https://www.google.com/chromecast/audio/
Google have also recently licensed its Cast technology for audio to third-party multiple speaker manufacturers under the "Chromecast built-in", so many speakers and AV-receivers from third-parties will likley soon support Chromecast Audio without dongle.
https://www.google.com/chromecast/built-in/audio/
http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/6/10723070/google-cast-new-speakers-ces-2016
https://www.engadget.com/2016/01/06/google-cast-in-moar-speakers-2016/
The awesomeness of Chromecast Audio on existing devices is that any music/audio app can add support for it on Android and iOS (iPhone/iPad/iPod) to stream audio to Chromecast Audio dongles and speakers over local WiFi, including with multiroom support.
https://www.google.com/chromecast/built-in/apps/#?speakers
The problem today comes when you play music in Kodi, as currently you can not output to those Chromecast Audio dongles and speakers at all, because Kodi does not yet have the option to output music streams to Chromecast Audio instead of its local speakers.
How could this be done in Kodi? For starter a few independent developers have made "PyChromecast" as an open source Python module to talk with Chromecast, maybe someone can check it out?
http://pypi.python.org/pypi/PyChromecast
http://github.com/balloob/pychromecast
PyChromecast - Library for Python 2 and 3 to communicate with the Google Chromecast (for video) and Chromecast Audio. It currently supports:
- Auto discovering connected Chromecasts on the network
- Start the default media receiver and play any online media
- Control playback of current playing media
- Implement Google Chromecast api v2
- Communicate with apps via channels
- Easily extendable to add support for unsupported namespaces
- Multi-room setups with Audio cast devices
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pychromecast/
https://packages.debian.org/sid/python/python-pychromecast
Not sure if anyone on the Kodi team have got a few Chromecast Audio yet but I stongly recommend it regardless if you integrate it Kodi or not.
I have bought a few dongles myself so far and have them connected to active (computer) speakers around the house and they work great.
These new Chromecast Audio dongles have finally brought the possibility for simple and cheap multiroom music playback to the masses!
RE: Google Cast (Chromecast Audio) "play to" with output to multi-room group? - QLink - 2016-07-22
would love that feature !
+1
RE: Google Cast (Chromecast Audio) "play to" with output to multi-room group? - nickr - 2016-07-22
Presumably via an external player?
RE: Google Cast (Chromecast Audio) "play to" with output to multi-room group? - feerlessleadr - 2016-07-29
*subscribe
This would be AWESOME
RE: Google Cast (Chromecast Audio) "play to" with output to multi-room group? - silentx - 2016-10-24
I want this too..
I've tried several alternative ways to get my music streamed from kodi to chromecast audio but nothing worked in a stable manner
RE: Google Cast (Chromecast Audio) "play to" with output to multi-room group? - oli_h_73 - 2016-10-28
I'd like this feature - to be able to play all sound from Kodi to Chromecast audio
RE: Google Cast (Chromecast Audio) "play to" with output to multi-room group? - RockerC - 2016-11-04
FYI; the upstream PyChromecast module/library is now at version 0.7.7 (0.7.7-1) and still seams to be activly developed:
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/PyChromecast
https://github.com/balloob/pychromecast
Hope that some developer will find this idea interesting and pick it up.
(2016-07-22, 09:08)nickr Wrote: Presumably via an external player?Why would an external player be needed or would that be the best solution regardless?
As far as I know Kodi does not support Python Scripts/Addons as external players?
Maybe this not be implemented in a other way or is an binary addon needed here?
RE: Google Cast (Chromecast Audio) "play to" with output to multi-room group? - nickr - 2016-11-05
An external player can be a simple script, such as pychromecast.
EDIT: and will appear in play using...
RE: Google Cast (Chromecast Audio) "play to" with output to multi-room group? - RockerC - 2017-09-04
FYI; Google published a blog post announcing that more Chromecast enabled speakers third-parties as well as third-party Google Assistant speakers (like Google Home) will arrive on the market soon, before the end of the year or early 2018:
https://www.blog.google/products/assistant/your-google-assistant-is-coming-to-new-speakers-and-more/
These and more speakers all support Google Cast (Chromecast Audio) with multi-room.
Atoher FYI; the above mentioned upstream PyChromecast module/library is now at version 0.8.2 and still seams to be activly developed:
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/PyChromecast
https://github.com/balloob/pychromecast