casting from VLC

[Viklander]

Dear all,

I have a nice Moode setup running all over the house along with a Daphile Logitech media server in the background.

Now I'd love to be able to cast music from vlc to any given Moode player

So I've tried to run VLC from a computer and attemped to 'see' the Moode RPi as a renderer, as VLC already 'sees' the Chromecast units, but I could't succeed

I've also tried to pair an Android phone to the Moode player (with BT activated, of course). 
Pairing appears being succesfully completed  (ie, the Android phone sees the Moode BT) but when I play an audio file from VLC running on the Android phone, no sound come out of the Moode unit, although I see the bargraph indicating some music is actually played

I tried to investigate a bit with bluetooth commands run from the console (btw I cannot cut and paste from the ssh console in the browser) :
I can see the BT device but nothing appears to be connected with it, which does not match with the view from the Android phone.

Moreover, the Moode BT Control pannel shows no existing or connected devices and the console commands 

bt-device -l says 'no device found'

and the commands run from bluetoothctl show a BT device, but apparently not paired.

Any hint to help me go forward in getting VLC working from both a computer using the renderin option and a phone thru BT will be greatly appreciated.

As always, I'm no native English speaker so I apologize for any oddity or inaccuracy in the explantion of the issues I'm facing / dealing with

Warm regards

[Tim Curtis]

Are the moode systems running Squeezelite?

[Viklander]

Are the moode systems running Squeezelite?

Hi Tim

yes they do
I've just restarted it on the player I'm testing with

[TheOldPresbyope]

The Chromecast protocol and software are not open source nor completely reverse engineered. Hence, moOde doesn’t have a Chromecast renderer.

I just tried VLC apps on my Google Pixel 6a phone (Android 15) and my Apple iPad (iPadOS 18.3.2). Both successfully stream music to my moOde player using Bluetooth and the iPad using AirPlay. The moOde renderers are enabled, of course.

Regards,
Kent

PS - I’m a native English speaker (well, American English, anyway). I often have to apologize for oddities or inaccuracies in my posts. You’re doing fine!

[TheOldPresbyope]

Ah, I just realized why Tim was asking about squeezelite. 

Quoting from moOde’s renderers config screen

Caution: Squeezelite hogs the audio output by default and so only turn it on when all other renderers are off otherwise it can interfere with the other renderers and with MPD.

Regards,
Kent

[Viklander]

The Chromecast protocol and software are not open source nor completely reverse engineered. Hence, moOde doesn’t have a Chromecast renderer.

I just tried VLC apps on my Google Pixel 6a phone (Android 15) and my Apple iPad (iPadOS 18.3.2). Both successfully stream music to my moOde player using Bluetooth and the iPad using AirPlay. The moOde renderers are enabled, of course.

Regards,
Kent

PS - I’m a native English speaker (well, American English, anyway). I often have to apologize for oddities or inaccuracies in my posts. You’re doing fine!

Hi Kent

thanks for the nice words, I used to be fluent back in the times I worked and lived in MN but those days are over :-( and I'm sometimes struggling with finding the right words ... anyway ...

okay, well now it's working but I don't know why ...

the good : it's working, VLC is playing from the Android to the Moode RPi, audio info (from the web interface of the player locked in 'bluetooth active' mode, similar to the mode when LMS is active
information shows audio chain = Bluetooth - hw - Device
the bad : <tdb>
the ugly : the Android phone suddendly has seen two BT devices
- one named accordingly to the name I defined in the Moode player admin interface "Nowhere"
- the other named "Moode1 Bluetooth"

I see the two devices from the shell with bt-device -l and from bluetoothctl

But where the hell is the 2nd BT device coming from with a name (Moode1) which doesn't exists on my confirguration (for clarity I defined everything to 'Nowhere')

I keep searching ...

PS : for the 2nd option, I am not trying to cast to a Chromecast
I am trying to cast to the Moode device from VLC running on a computer, using the rendering option, but the Moode device (ie, the Rpi, is not seen)

[Viklander]

btw, how can I cut from the ssh console in the browser and paste the commands / outputs to the text editor ?

[Viklander]

My android cell phone shows for hw BT address 68 4D B6 33 80 EB

from the Moode Rpi / shell

root@nowhere:~# bt-device -l 
Added devices :
Nowhere (68:4D:B6:33:80:EB) <= Android device 
Moode 1 Bluetooth (B8:27:EB:AD:99:C0) <= coming from ??? but the phone is connected to it and the music is currently playing 

so it looks like the phone is seen as the Rpi under the name I defined for its BT interface, 
while the effective BT device of the Rpi board is seen as another BT interface with a name picked up from ???
but hciconfig -a shows a third address B8 27 EB 27 EA 83

[TheOldPresbyope]

[Sorry, I posted this before I noticed your most recent message.]

I've spent time in more than a dozen countries around the world. I can still say "hello", "goodbye", "please", "thank you", "another beer, please" and maybe count to three or more in a number of languages. After that, I have to depend on the patience of others to make myself understood

I mentioned Chromecast only because your original post did.

Until I tell it to, my phone never forgets a Bluetooth device it's been associated with in the past. Have you ever associated your phone's Bluetooth subsystem with a moOde player named "moode1"? Have you tried telling it to forget that device?

Regards,
Kent

[TheOldPresbyope]

So on my moOde player (hostname: moodey) with my Pixel 6a connected and streaming to it via Bluetooth, I get this

Code:

rho@moodey:~ $ bt-device -l
Added devices:
Pixel 6a (0C:C4:13:D6:3A:36)
JBL Flip 2 (00:1D:DF:AA:27:37)

The JBL Flip 2 is a Bluetooth speaker I use when testing Bluetooth output from moOde.

Regards,
Kent