Reply to: KODI and Chromecast?

[Fred Bloggs]

I'm back in living my apartment overseas now. I have tried Netflix and Kodi via the Chromecast and they work really well. At the moment I am holding off on the Kodi box idea. I'm not so sure I need one. Streaming off my Android phone seems just fine. And I can keep it charging too if battery drain gets to be an issue.

[Fred Bloggs]

Anyway, just checking in to say that this morning I got Kodi streaming just fine in 1080p to the telly via the Chromecast using the Localcast app on my Android Marshallow phone. It was easy to set up and only took me a couple of minutes to do. Until Kodi has the function built in to it, Localcast seems an OK option. If I find myself using Kodi regularly, I'll likely buy a Pi Kodi box.

[Fred Bloggs]

Pi is great but you need to want to fiddle. The SD cards tend to pop occasionally and you end up swearing a lot.

The Android boxes should be configured out of the box and use NAND so should be more reliable.

Thanks, I kind of thought reliability wise the Pi would be the better against a pretty much unknown Chinese Android box. But for only a bit above GBP 30 it isn't a huge investment anyway. I think the Pi kit is GBP 52, so a bit dearer.

[vetran]

Pi is great but you need to want to fiddle. The SD cards tend to pop occasionally and you end up swearing a lot.

The Android boxes should be configured out of the box and use NAND so should be more reliable.

[Fred Bloggs]

Some of the Kodi boxes that you'll see on Amazon / eBay etc will have additional channels installed (eg so you can watch Sky Sports without a Sky subscription, or stream films) - if you want that then a quick search on YouTube will show you how to do it in a couple of minutes.

Cheers thanks. I'm not into Sports and Mrs Bloggs has a Sky account, if I wanted I could use Sky Go. I'm more interested in using Kodi abroad as I'm out of the UK mostly working.

[TheFaQQer]

Wow. That's impressive. I'll have a think about that further.

Some of the Kodi boxes that you'll see on Amazon / eBay etc will have additional channels installed (eg so you can watch Sky Sports without a Sky subscription, or stream films) - if you want that then a quick search on YouTube will show you how to do it in a couple of minutes.

[Fred Bloggs]

I've run XBMC on a Pi 2 before with no problem, so I would imagine that kodi on a Pi 3 would be better. No work at all - pop the card in the Pi, the Pi in the case and plug it in to the mains and the TV.

Wow. That's impressive. I'll have a think about that further.

[TheFaQQer]

Thanks very much for the tip. I wasn't aware of a new Kodi release. I agree with you, if I get an Android box it has to be v6.

Edited to add - Follow up question - I stumbled across a Raspberry pi Kodi solution. I think I could manage to assemble this, doesn't look like it needs any soldering or anything. It seems the OS and Kodi are pre-installed in the SD card. Would it be a better solution than one of the Chinese Kodi boxes on Amazon do you think? Myself, I have no experience of the Raspberry pi but I don't mind a bit of tinkering.

https://thepihut.com/collections/ras...nt=17986632452

I've run XBMC on a Pi 2 before with no problem, so I would imagine that kodi on a Pi 3 would be better. No work at all - pop the card in the Pi, the Pi in the case and plug it in to the mains and the TV.

[Fred Bloggs]

I use videocast for chrome, great little add on for chrome, just select the file and it streams it to my chrome cast

Thanks, I'll look it up.

[nc1]

I use videocast for chrome, great little add on for chrome, just select the file and it streams it to my chrome cast

[Fred Bloggs]

Thanks very much for the tip. I wasn't aware of a new Kodi release. I agree with you, if I get an Android box it has to be v6.

Edited to add - Follow up question - I stumbled across a Raspberry pi Kodi solution. I think I could manage to assemble this, doesn't look like it needs any soldering or anything. It seems the OS and Kodi are pre-installed in the SD card. Would it be a better solution than one of the Chinese Kodi boxes on Amazon do you think? Myself, I have no experience of the Raspberry pi but I don't mind a bit of tinkering.

https://thepihut.com/collections/ras...nt=17986632452

[vetran]

with the Android boxes check the version currently 6 Marshmallow they only support the previous major so version 4 is old hat.

KODI 17 is supposed to be a bit bigger so will need a beefier box > 2GB Ram > 8GB NAND so don't buy too cheap.

Alledgedly KODI 17 will run on the latest Fire TV sticks (just released with Alexa) so £40-50 and if you are a Prime customer its a steal. Just load KODI on that, 16 works OK on the old sticks not terribly fast but more than acceptable.

Miracast (Consortium) & Aircast (Apple) are similar to Chromecast but better supported. Or use DNLA from the fire stick from something like a DLink sharecentre (about £50 without drives) then you just select it like a locally stored file and play it.

[Fred Bloggs]

Thanks very much for the comments. I have learned quite a bit. My gut feel was that an Android box running Kodi and plugged directly into the HDMI port on the telly is a better option quality wise. Quite a few to choose from on Amazon from around £32 so not a lot dearer than a Chromecast.

[VectraMan]

The way chromecast works is that despite the fact there are no "native" apps running on it, it still needs components of the app in question on it to negotiate with the casting device - phone, tablet, PC etc. that runs the full app. AFAIK there is no native support for KODI for chromecast and you have to use screen casting app to supported by Chromecast, which is not ideal as the casting device needs to remain switched on. With a native app the casting device acts like a remote and just hands over the content/stream to the chromecast.

I'm not sure "components" is really accurate, but clearly the Chromecast needs to be able to access the stream. I can cast an HTML5 video from a web page, and it does that by sending the URL to the Chromecast; i.e. the Chromecast then plays http:// ... whatever.mp4. So clearly that could work with any system that makes the video accessible as a URL without needing any kind of locally installed components.

It looks like LocalCast acts as a kind of proxy server, making your phone/tablet into a webserver to make the URL available to Chromecast. At least I think that's what's going on. I don't know why that would be the case; with Plex the controller just gives the Chromecast the URL to play from the server. Though given that Chromecast is pretty well known, and that Kodi is pretty well known, you have to wonder why Kodi don't simply support it like others do.

[sal]

Ahhhh, yes, I see. It seems the logical thing is to cast the screen to the Chromecast with KODI running.

But it seems an app called LocalCast is recommended, perhaps that casts the stream rather than the screen? Excuse the numpty questions. I am very new to this.

The way chromecast works is that despite the fact there are no "native" apps running on it, it still needs components of the app in question on it to negotiate with the casting device - phone, tablet, PC etc. that runs the full app. AFAIK there is no native support for KODI for chromecast and you have to use screen casting app to supported by Chromecast, which is not ideal as the casting device needs to remain switched on. With a native app the casting device acts like a remote and just hands over the content/stream to the chromecast.

You might be better off with a cheapo KODI HDMI stick