Local streaming support

[altf4]

Right now the Rickmote only has support for playing YouTube videos from the real Internet YouTube. That means you have to tether an Internet connection from your phone, or connect out to a separate Wi-Fi that has an Internet connection.

Ideally we'd like to play video locally straight from the Rickmote, not YouTube. That way we can cut the cord. VLC is supposedly gaining support for Chromecast streaming soon:

http://www.omgchrome.com/vlc-chromecast-support-coming-android-ios-desktop/

So maybe that would be the best way to go once it's working.

[altf4]

In case we don't want to wait for VLC to gain official support, there may be another option (I tried reaching the VLC devs on IRC, but I didn't get a response. A lot of them are in Europe though, iirc, so maybe it's just a time zone issue)

MediaTomb is a nice open source upnp media server that can stream videos to the Chromecast. Though apparently not all by itself. A quick Google search indicates that the proprietary Avia Android app has support for playing videos from MediaTomb:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Chromecast/comments/1umk7t/lets_make_this_the_last_how_do_i_play_local/

To make this work, we'd have to intercept the traffic between the Avia Android app and the Chromecast to see what it's doing. I'm hoping that it's something simple like an HTTP post with the URL of where to find the file to play. MediaTomb runs a web server where the Chromecast could just easily pull the videos down and play.

This is more or less how the default media app used to work on the Chromecast. But that got removed for unknown reasons. Shakes fist angrily into the air

[altf4]

Good news on this front. Pychromecast added support for local streaming. I tested it out, and it works. I'll add support for this in the Rickmote code shortly!