Last night, I wrote +a +recipe to stream a Linux desktop using VLC to a instance of Kodi. +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.
+ +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 +the JSON-RPC API in +Kodi 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. Note, I have no idea if audio work, as I +only care about the picture part.
+ +
+#!/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"
+I hope you find the approach useful. I know I do.
+ +As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my +activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address +15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.
+