While it sounds like an awesome project, it's the kind of thing I would have liked to have seen years ago. Nowadays I use Plex, and really don't bother with using a chromecast since my TV supports plex directly.
i mostly avoid "smart" tvs as i don't want to have to replace them after 3 years when the firmware/software is no longer updated. Chromecast helps me stay free of that paid obsolescence cycle and upgrade according to a planned budget
My parent's "smart" tv from 2014 is still going strong because of this. i got them an(at the time) expensive 1920x1080 HD model and for that reason it's still going strong. The "smart" features are mostly kaput now or so glitchy they don't work. Only netflix still works but netflix is shit now so they switched to prime. Since the tv has 2 hdmi in i just got them a chromecast(for regular internet video casting) and a fire stick(stupid amazon incompatibility with chromecast) instead
I agree with you for the most part, I just feel like the chromecast was badly thought out, being that it was more like a browser on a stick that didn't have any direct user input (other than some phone app) rather than a true TV appliance with a remote.
And while pretty much every tv I own has a chromecast, they just don't get used -- Mostly because the connection between my chrome cast and my pixel 2 is flaky. And that's even on google wi-fi.
And I really miss the tactile feel of a remote control that you don't have to look at to use.
There are some third party add ons for video but nowadays the good tv's have apps on them that pretty much render the chromecasts obsolete. And they'll do 4k streaming too.
Youtube, plex, hulu, and netflix all have apps on my LG TV. And there's a few more on there as well.
One nice thing you can do with catt is to cast web pages to to the Home Hub. I use it to cast Octoprint (web interface for 3D printers) to my Home Hub so I can keep an eye on prints.
I found chromecast a bit of a con. The whole casting it sold itself on was a fiddly mess. Better to just admit it was a roku with built in players but without a remote control and casting as just a side kludgy footnote. Yes, you could kind of get there but not in an elegant easy way. Maybe it will get easier now that VLC lets you cast directly from it (Playback menu, renderer). Still perhaps I just wasn't using it right. Cheap mind.
Awesome project! Something I will be giving a try. For people looking for similar things, check out https://github.com/xat/castnow
I say this with full hypocrisy since I ship a couple of projects using rubygems, but as a non-python dev it saddens me to have software distributed via pip.
As a non-JS dev, it saddens me to have software distributed via npm. What can you do? It would be great if we could ship everything in OS repositories, but it's not always possible.
Agreed, tho I think it isn't really a question of possibility as much as a question of whether the amount of work is too high for charity.
I wish more people on Linux would adopt brew. I've found brew to be a great supplement to the built-in package manager, especially for things that update frequently like youtube-dl (which, is a python program that is not distributed exclusively via pip).
