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        <channel>
                <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries tagged kodi</title>
                <description>Entries tagged kodi</description>
                <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>

        
        <item>
                <title>New and improved Frikanalen Kodi addon version 0.0.3</title>
                <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_and_improved_Frikanalen_Kodi_addon_version_0_0_3.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_and_improved_Frikanalen_Kodi_addon_version_0_0_3.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 8 Nov 2018 10:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;If you read my blog regularly, you probably know I am involved in
running and developing the &lt;a href=&quot;https://frikanalen.no/&quot;&gt;Norwegian
TV channel Frikanalen&lt;/a&gt;.  It is an open channel, allowing everyone
in Norway to publish videos on a TV channel with national coverage.
You can think of it as Youtube for national television.
In addition to distribution on RiksTV and Uninett, Frikanalen is also
available as a Kodi addon.  The last few days I have updated the code
to add more features.  A
&lt;a href=&quot;https://kodi.tv/addon/plugins-video-add-ons/frikanalen-nett-tv&quot;&gt;new
and improved version 0.0.3 Frikanalen addon&lt;/a&gt; was just made
available via the Kodi repositories.  This new version include a
option to browse videos by category, as well as free text search
in the video archive.  It will now also show the video duration in the
video lists, which were missing earlier.  A new and experimental
link to the HD video stream currently being worked on is provided, for
those that want to see what the &lt;a href=&quot;https://casparcg.com/&quot;&gt;CasparCG&lt;/a&gt;
output look like.  The alternative is the SD video stream, generated
using MLT.  CasparCG is controlled by our
&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/Frikanalen/mltplayout/&quot;&gt;mltplayout
server&lt;/a&gt; which instead of talking to mlt is giving PLAY instructions
to the CasparCG server when it is time to start a new program.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;By now, you are probably wondering what kind of content is being
played on the channel.  These days, it is filled with technical
presentations like those from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nuug.no/&quot;&gt;NUUG&lt;/a&gt;,
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.debconf.org/&quot;&gt;Debconf&lt;/a&gt;, Makercon, and TED,
but there are also some periods with
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.empo.no/&quot;&gt;EMPT TV&lt;/a&gt; and
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.p7.no/&quot;&gt;P7&lt;/a&gt;.

&lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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        <item>
                <title>Using the Kodi API to play Youtube videos</title>
                <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_the_Kodi_API_to_play_Youtube_videos.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_the_Kodi_API_to_play_Youtube_videos.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sun, 2 Sep 2018 23:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;I continue to explore my Kodi installation, and today I wanted to
tell it to play a youtube URL I received in a chat, without having to
insert search terms using the on-screen keyboard.  After searching the
web for API access to the Youtube plugin and testing a bit, I managed
to find a recipe that worked.  If you got a kodi instance with its API
available from http://kodihost/jsonrpc, you can try the following to
have check out a nice cover band.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;curl --silent --header &#39;Content-Type: application/json&#39; \
  --data-binary &#39;{ &quot;id&quot;: 1, &quot;jsonrpc&quot;: &quot;2.0&quot;, &quot;method&quot;: &quot;Player.Open&quot;,
  &quot;params&quot;: {&quot;item&quot;: { &quot;file&quot;:
  &quot;plugin://plugin.video.youtube/play/?video_id=LuRGVM9O0qg&quot; } } }&#39; \
  http://projector.local/jsonrpc&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I&#39;ve extended kodi-stream program to take a video source as its
first argument.  It can now handle direct video links, youtube links
and &#39;desktop&#39; to stream my desktop to Kodi.  It is almost like a
Chromecast. :)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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        <item>
                <title>Simple streaming the Linux desktop to Kodi using GStreamer and RTP</title>
                <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simple_streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_GStreamer_and_RTP.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://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>&lt;p&gt;Last night, I wrote
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_VLC_and_RTSP.html&quot;&gt;a
recipe to stream a Linux desktop using VLC to a instance of Kodi&lt;/a&gt;.
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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;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
&lt;a href=&quot;https://kodi.wiki/view/JSON-RPC_API/v8&quot;&gt;the JSON-RPC API in
Kodi&lt;/a&gt; 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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
#!/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=&quot;$1&quot;
    cmd=&quot;$2&quot;
    params=&quot;$3&quot;
    curl --silent --header &#39;Content-Type: application/json&#39; \
         --data-binary &quot;{ \&quot;id\&quot;: 1, \&quot;jsonrpc\&quot;: \&quot;2.0\&quot;, \&quot;method\&quot;: \&quot;$cmd\&quot;, \&quot;params\&quot;: $params }&quot; \
         &quot;http://$host/jsonrpc&quot;
}
cleanup() {
    if [ -n &quot;$kodihost&quot; ] ; then
        # Stop the playing when we end
        playerid=$(kodicmd &quot;$kodihost&quot; Player.GetActivePlayers &quot;{}&quot; |
                            jq .result[].playerid)
        kodicmd &quot;$kodihost&quot; Player.Stop &quot;{ \&quot;playerid\&quot; : $playerid }&quot; &gt; /dev/null
    fi
    if [ &quot;$gstpid&quot; ] &amp;&amp; kill -0 &quot;$gstpid&quot; &gt;/dev/null 2&gt;&amp;1; then
        kill &quot;$gstpid&quot;
    fi
}
trap cleanup EXIT INT

if [ -n &quot;$1&quot; ]; then
    kodihost=$1
    shift
else
    kodihost=kodi.local
fi

mcast=239.255.0.1
mcastport=1234
mcastttl=1

pasrc=$(pactl list | grep -A2 &#39;Source #&#39; | grep &#39;Name: .*\.monitor$&#39; | \
  cut -d&quot; &quot; -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. \
  &gt; /dev/null 2&gt;&amp;1 &amp;
gstpid=$!

# Give stream a second to get going
sleep 1

# Ask kodi to start streaming using its JSON-RPC API
kodicmd &quot;$kodihost&quot; Player.Open \
        &quot;{\&quot;item\&quot;: { \&quot;file\&quot;: \&quot;udp://@$mcast:$mcastport\&quot; } }&quot; &gt; /dev/null

# wait for gst to end
wait &quot;$gstpid&quot;
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I hope you find the approach useful.  I know I do.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Streaming the Linux desktop to Kodi using VLC and RTSP</title>
                <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_VLC_and_RTSP.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://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>&lt;p&gt;PS: See
&lt;ahref=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simple_streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_GStreamer_and_RTP.html&quot;&gt;the
followup post&lt;/a&gt; for a even better approach.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I had a look at several approaches, for example
&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/mfoetsch/dlna_live_streaming&quot;&gt;using uPnP
DLNA as described in 2011&lt;/a&gt;, 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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I did not spend much time investigating codeces.  I combined the
rtp and rtsp recipes from
&lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Streaming_HowTo/Command_Line_Examples/&quot;&gt;the
VLC Streaming HowTo/Command Line Examples&lt;/a&gt;, and was able to get
this working on the desktop/streaming end.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
vlc screen:// --sout \
  &#39;#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{dst=projector.local,port=1234,sdp=rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/test.sdp}&#39;
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I ssh-ed into my Kodi box and created a file like this with the
same IP address:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
echo rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/test.sdp \
  &gt; /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;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. :)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2018-07-12&lt;/strong&gt;: Johannes Schauer send me a few
succestions and reminded me about an important step.  The &quot;screen:&quot;
input source is only available once the vlc-plugin-access-extra
package is installed on Debian.  Without it, you will see this error
message: &quot;VLC is unable to open the MRL &#39;screen://&#39;.  Check the log
for details.&quot;  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

&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
cvlc screen:// --sout \
  &#39;#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{sdp=rtsp://:8080/}&#39;
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;and this on the Kodi end&lt;p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
echo rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/ \
  &gt; /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;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&#39;ve tried to change the vb and ab
parameters to use more bandwidth, but it did not make a
difference.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;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:

&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
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=$(pactl list | grep -A2 &#39;Source #&#39; | \
    grep &#39;Name: .*\.monitor$&#39; |  cut -d&quot; &quot; -f2|head -1) ! \
  audioconvert ! queue2 ! avenc_aac ! queue2 ! mux.
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;and this on the Kodi end&lt;p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
echo udp://@239.255.0.1:1234 \
  &gt; /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;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 &quot;hop&quot; for each increase (read up on
multicast to learn more. :)!&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
cvlc screen:// --sout &#39;#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{mux=ts,dst=239.255.0.1,port=1234,sdp=sap}&#39;
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
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