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Chromecast integration


tman

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Loving the new Android/Chromecast MB integration. I know it's early days with this, but I've made a few observations. FYI, I use a wall-mounted Android JB 4.2 tablet in landscape mode to cast.

 

1. When browsing the MB library, everything is fine. When I play a movie via cast, the screen flips to portrait mode showing the movie cover and playback controls (remember my tablet is permanently in landscape, so you have to tilt your head 90deg). When I stop a movie, everything stays in portait until I force it back into landscape by moving the tablet slightly. Just wondered if the Android client can honour the screen orientation.

 

2. When I playback bluray rips (MKV @ 1080P w/FLAC), the video plays full screen, and seems fine. When I playback a DVD rip (VIDEO_TS format), the video is all squashed in the middle of the screen, and not full width. I don't mind the black bars if the movie is 2.35:1, but this is unwatchable. Is this an Android client problem, or Chromecast?

 

3. As I'm in the UK, my DVD rips are all 50Hz. The Android client (or again, Chromecast, I'm not sure) does not force 50Hz, so with everything in 60Hz, I get terrible judder.

 

Not sure if these are all MB client problems or Chromecast as well, but it would be useful to know if there's anything I can do about it, or whether I've got to wait for fixes.

 

Thanks

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Redshirt

Hey.

 

1. I've had a few people ask about a landscape remote control view. I can look into providing that. My decision for portrait only was originally because I assumed people would be holding the phone or smaller tablets in one hand like an actual remote. 

 

2. Are you seeing this on the CC or the Android tablet/phone? If your seeing it on the CC, does the issue replicate on the tablet/phone?

 

3. I'm going to hold off on answering this one for now.

Edited by Redshirt
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Thanks for the reply.

 

Landscape support for remote control view would be great. I'd suggest just keep the orientation the same as the tablet/phone is currently in might be the easiest.

 

In regard the the squashed output, I only see this during the cast. When playing back on the tablet, the screen is displayed correctly. No CC being used.

 

I only asked about the 50Hz issue because I don't know if it's an MB Server/Android transcoding issue/Chromecast or just my TV. If it's something your not aware of, then I'll have to look elsewhere.

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Redshirt

2 and 3 are tricky as there's no way for me to poll the Chromecast to determine the current resolution and refresh rate. So I don't know how much to scale the video. Same with the refresh rate. there's no way for me to determine that on the device. The closest thing I could possibly do there would be to provide a setting for what fps to transcode to when playing to the CC. Although that's just an ugly solution and I'm not even sure if it will actually resolve the problem.

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CBers

Hey.

 

1. I've had a few people ask about a landscape remote control view. I can look into providing that. My decision for portrait only was originally because I assumed people would be holding the phone or smaller tablets in one hand like an actual remote.

Landscape would be nice, as I have to turn my Nexus 10 round to control CC playback ;)

 

Normally use my phone, so hadn't come across this, but last night phone was dead so had to use tablet.

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