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.m4u on the Kodi machine and adjust the vlc -repice. To get started, locate the file in Kodi and select the m3u +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. :)
@@ -81,6 +81,79 @@ 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. +Update 2018-07-12: 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 + +
+cvlc screen:// --sout \
+ '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{sdp=rtsp://:8080/}'
+and this on the Kodi end
+ +
+ ++echo rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/ \ + > /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u +
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.
+ +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: + +
+ ++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. +
and this on the Kodi end
+ +
+ ++echo udp://@239.255.0.1:1234 \ + > /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u +
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. :)!
+ +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.
+ +
+cvlc screen:// --sout '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{mux=ts,dst=239.255.0.1,port=1234,sdp=sap}'
+As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address 15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.