- <title>Simple streaming the Linux desktop to Kodi using GStreamer and RTP</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simple_streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_GStreamer_and_RTP.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simple_streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_GStreamer_and_RTP.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Thu, 12 Jul 2018 17:55:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>Last night, I wrote
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_VLC_and_RTSP.html">a
-recipe to stream a Linux desktop using VLC to a instance of Kodi</a>.
-During the day I received valuable feedback, and thanks to the
-suggestions I have been able to rewrite the recipe into a much simpler
-approach requiring no setup at all. It is a single script that take
-care of it all.</p>
-
-<p>This new script uses GStreamer instead of VLC to capture the
-desktop and stream it to Kodi. This fixed the video quality issue I
-saw initially. It further removes the need to add a m3u file on the
-Kodi machine, as it instead connects to
-<a href="https://kodi.wiki/view/JSON-RPC_API/v8">the JSON-RPC API in
-Kodi</a> and simply ask Kodi to play from the stream created using
-GStreamer. Streaming the desktop to Kodi now become trivial. Copy
-the script below, run it with the DNS name or IP address of the kodi
-server to stream to as the only argument, and watch your screen show
-up on the Kodi screen. Note, it depend on multicast on the local
-network, so if you need to stream outside the local network, the
-script must be modified. Also note, I have no idea if audio work, as
-I only care about the picture part.</p>
-
-<blockquote><pre>
-#!/bin/sh
-#
-# Stream the Linux desktop view to Kodi. See
-# http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_VLC_and_RTSP.html
-# for backgorund information.
-
-# Make sure the stream is stopped in Kodi and the gstreamer process is
-# killed if something go wrong (for example if curl is unable to find the
-# kodi server). Do the same when interrupting this script.
-kodicmd() {
- host="$1"
- cmd="$2"
- params="$3"
- curl --silent --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
- --data-binary "{ \"id\": 1, \"jsonrpc\": \"2.0\", \"method\": \"$cmd\", \"params\": $params }" \
- "http://$host/jsonrpc"
-}
-cleanup() {
- if [ -n "$kodihost" ] ; then
- # Stop the playing when we end
- playerid=$(kodicmd "$kodihost" Player.GetActivePlayers "{}" |
- jq .result[].playerid)
- kodicmd "$kodihost" Player.Stop "{ \"playerid\" : $playerid }" > /dev/null
- fi
- if [ "$gstpid" ] && kill -0 "$gstpid" >/dev/null 2>&1; then
- kill "$gstpid"
- fi
-}
-trap cleanup EXIT INT
-
-if [ -n "$1" ]; then
- kodihost=$1
- shift
-else
- kodihost=kodi.local
-fi
-
-mcast=239.255.0.1
-mcastport=1234
-mcastttl=1
-
-pasrc=$(pactl list | grep -A2 'Source #' | grep 'Name: .*\.monitor$' | \
- cut -d" " -f2|head -1)
-gst-launch-1.0 ximagesrc use-damage=0 ! video/x-raw,framerate=30/1 ! \
- videoconvert ! queue2 ! \
- x264enc bitrate=8000 speed-preset=superfast tune=zerolatency qp-min=30 \
- key-int-max=15 bframes=2 ! video/x-h264,profile=high ! queue2 ! \
- mpegtsmux alignment=7 name=mux ! rndbuffersize max=1316 min=1316 ! \
- udpsink host=$mcast port=$mcastport ttl-mc=$mcastttl auto-multicast=1 sync=0 \
- pulsesrc device=$pasrc ! audioconvert ! queue2 ! avenc_aac ! queue2 ! mux. \
- > /dev/null 2>&1 &
-gstpid=$!
-
-# Give stream a second to get going
-sleep 1
-
-# Ask kodi to start streaming using its JSON-RPC API
-kodicmd "$kodihost" Player.Open \
- "{\"item\": { \"file\": \"udp://@$mcast:$mcastport\" } }" > /dev/null
-
-# wait for gst to end
-wait "$gstpid"
-</pre></blockquote>
-
-<p>I hope you find the approach useful. I know I do.</p>
-
-<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
-activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
-<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
- <item>
- <title>Streaming the Linux desktop to Kodi using VLC and RTSP</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_VLC_and_RTSP.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_VLC_and_RTSP.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Thu, 12 Jul 2018 02:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>PS: See
-<ahref="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simple_streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_GStreamer_and_RTP.html">the
-followup post</a> for a even better approach.</p>
-
-<p>A while back, I was asked by a friend how to stream the desktop to
-my projector connected to Kodi. I sadly had to admit that I had no
-idea, as it was a task I never had tried. Since then, I have been
-looking for a way to do so, preferable without much extra software to
-install on either side. Today I found a way that seem to kind of
-work. Not great, but it is a start.</p>
-
-<p>I had a look at several approaches, for example
-<a href="https://github.com/mfoetsch/dlna_live_streaming">using uPnP
-DLNA as described in 2011</a>, but it required a uPnP server, fuse and
-local storage enough to store the stream locally. This is not going
-to work well for me, lacking enough free space, and it would
-impossible for my friend to get working.</p>
-
-<p>Next, it occurred to me that perhaps I could use VLC to create a
-video stream that Kodi could play. Preferably using
-broadcast/multicast, to avoid having to change any setup on the Kodi
-side when starting such stream. Unfortunately, the only recipe I
-could find using multicast used the rtp protocol, and this protocol
-seem to not be supported by Kodi.</p>
-
-<p>On the other hand, the rtsp protocol is working! Unfortunately I
-have to specify the IP address of the streaming machine in both the
-sending command and the file on the Kodi server. But it is showing my
-desktop, and thus allow us to have a shared look on the big screen at
-the programs I work on.</p>
-
-<p>I did not spend much time investigating codeces. I combined the
-rtp and rtsp recipes from
-<a href="https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Streaming_HowTo/Command_Line_Examples/">the
-VLC Streaming HowTo/Command Line Examples</a>, and was able to get
-this working on the desktop/streaming end.</p>
-
-<blockquote><pre>
-vlc screen:// --sout \
- '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{dst=projector.local,port=1234,sdp=rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/test.sdp}'
-</pre></blockquote>
-
-<p>I ssh-ed into my Kodi box and created a file like this with the
-same IP address:</p>
-
-<blockquote><pre>
-echo rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/test.sdp \
- > /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
-</pre></blockquote>
-
-<p>Note the 192.168.11.4 IP address is my desktops IP address. As far
-as I can tell the IP must be hardcoded for this to work. In other
-words, if someone elses machine is going to do the steaming, you have
-to update screenstream.m3u on the Kodi machine and adjust the vlc
-recipe. To get started, locate the file in Kodi and select the m3u
-file while the VLC stream is running. The desktop then show up in my
-big screen. :)</p>
-
-<p>When using the same technique to stream a video file with audio,
-the audio quality is really bad. No idea if the problem is package
-loss or bad parameters for the transcode. I do not know VLC nor Kodi
-enough to tell.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Update 2018-07-12</strong>: Johannes Schauer send me a few
-succestions and reminded me about an important step. The "screen:"
-input source is only available once the vlc-plugin-access-extra
-package is installed on Debian. Without it, you will see this error
-message: "VLC is unable to open the MRL 'screen://'. Check the log
-for details." He further found that it is possible to drop some parts
-of the VLC command line to reduce the amount of hardcoded information.
-It is also useful to consider using cvlc to avoid having the VLC
-window in the desktop view. In sum, this give us this command line on
-the source end
-
-<blockquote><pre>
-cvlc screen:// --sout \
- '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{sdp=rtsp://:8080/}'
-</pre></blockquote>
-
-<p>and this on the Kodi end<p>
-
-<blockquote><pre>
-echo rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/ \
- > /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
-</pre></blockquote>
-
-<p>Still bad image quality, though. But I did discover that streaming
-a DVD using dvdsimple:///dev/dvd as the source had excellent video and
-audio quality, so I guess the issue is in the input or transcoding
-parts, not the rtsp part. I've tried to change the vb and ab
-parameters to use more bandwidth, but it did not make a
-difference.</p>
-
-<p>I further received a suggestion from Einar Haraldseid to try using
-gstreamer instead of VLC, and this proved to work great! He also
-provided me with the trick to get Kodi to use a multicast stream as
-its source. By using this monstrous oneliner, I can stream my desktop
-with good video quality in reasonable framerate to the 239.255.0.1
-multicast address on port 1234:
-
-<blockquote><pre>
-gst-launch-1.0 ximagesrc use-damage=0 ! video/x-raw,framerate=30/1 ! \
- videoconvert ! queue2 ! \
- x264enc bitrate=8000 speed-preset=superfast tune=zerolatency qp-min=30 \
- key-int-max=15 bframes=2 ! video/x-h264,profile=high ! queue2 ! \
- mpegtsmux alignment=7 name=mux ! rndbuffersize max=1316 min=1316 ! \
- udpsink host=239.255.0.1 port=1234 ttl-mc=1 auto-multicast=1 sync=0 \
- pulsesrc device=$(pactl list | grep -A2 'Source #' | \
- grep 'Name: .*\.monitor$' | cut -d" " -f2|head -1) ! \
- audioconvert ! queue2 ! avenc_aac ! queue2 ! mux.
-</pre></blockquote>
-
-<p>and this on the Kodi end<p>
-
-<blockquote><pre>
-echo udp://@239.255.0.1:1234 \
- > /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
-</pre></blockquote>
-
-<p>Note the trick to pick a valid pulseaudio source. It might not
-pick the one you need. This approach will of course lead to trouble
-if more than one source uses the same multicast port and address.
-Note the ttl-mc=1 setting, which limit the multicast packages to the
-local network. If the value is increased, your screen will be
-broadcasted further, one network "hop" for each increase (read up on
-multicast to learn more. :)!</p>
-
-<p>Having cracked how to get Kodi to receive multicast streams, I
-could use this VLC command to stream to the same multicast address.
-The image quality is way better than the rtsp approach, but gstreamer
-seem to be doing a better job.</p>
-
-<blockquote><pre>
-cvlc screen:// --sout '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{mux=ts,dst=239.255.0.1,port=1234,sdp=sap}'
-</pre></blockquote>
-
+ <title>VLC bittorrent plugin in Bullseye, saved by the bell?</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/VLC_bittorrent_plugin_in_Bullseye__saved_by_the_bell_.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/VLC_bittorrent_plugin_in_Bullseye__saved_by_the_bell_.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Sat, 1 May 2021 11:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>Yesterday morning I got a warning call from the Debian quality
+control system that
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/vlc-plugin-bittorrent">the VLC
+bittorrent plugin</a> was due to be removed because of a release
+critical bug in one of its dependencies. As you might remember, this
+plugin make VLC able to stream videos directly from a bittorrent
+source using both torrent files and magnet links, similar to using a
+HTTP source. I believe such protocol support is a vital feature in
+VLC, allowing efficient streaming from sources such at the almost 7
+million movies in <a href="https://archive.org/">the Internet
+Archive</a>.</p>
+
+<p>The dependency was the unmaintained
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libtorrent-rasterbar">libtorrent-rasterbar</a>
+package, and <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/987306">the bug in
+question</a> blocked its python library from working properly. As I
+did not want Bullseye to release without bittorrent support in VLC, I
+set out to check out the status, and track down a fix for the problem.
+Luckily the issue had already been identified and fixed upstream,
+providing everything needed. All I needed to do was to fetch the
+Debian git repository, extract and trim the patch from upstream and
+apply it to the Debian package for upload.</p>
+
+<p>The fixed library was uploaded yesterday evening. But that is not
+enough to get it into Bullseye, as Debian is currently in package
+freeze to prepare for a new next stable release. Only non-critical
+packages with
+<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/ContinuousIntegration/autopkgtest">autopkgtest
+setup</a> included, in other words able to validate automatically that
+the package is working, are allowed to migrate automatically into the
+next release at this stage. And the unmaintained libtorrent-rasterbar
+lack such testing, and thus needed a manual override. I am happy to
+report that such manual override was approved a few minutes ago, thus
+increasing significantly the chance of VLC bittorrent streaming being
+available out of the box also for Debian/Buster users. A bit too
+close shave for my liking, as the Bullseye release is most likely just
+a few days away, and this did feel like the package was saved by the
+bell. I am so glad the warning email showed up in time for me to
+handle the issue, and a big thanks go to the Debian Release team for
+the quick feedback on
+<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-release">#debian-release</a>
+and their <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/987865">swift
+unblocking</a>.</p>
+
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