Casting BI web UI to chromecast

[opens]

Hi everyone,

I have a spare monitor and a Google TV Chromecast that I'd like to use as a bookcase display for the Blueiris web UI. I've tried using CATT (GitHub - skorokithakis/catt: Cast All The Things allows you to send videos from many, many online sources to your Chromecast.) to cast the UI, and it works great, but I'm facing an issue where it times out after 10 minutes, causing the Chromecast to go into ambient mode. I've noticed that other users have experienced a similar problem.

I'm wondering if anyone in the community has come across a workaround to keep the Blueiris dashboard active on the Chromecast without it timing out or alternative methods to use a monitor and Chromecast as a relatively cheap BI display.

Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[TonyR]

Have you tried in UI3's "UI settings" to set "Idle Timeout" to 0 (zero) ?

If that works and depending on your login method, I believe that parameter can be included in the URL for UI3 login (my UI3 is too old for me to know).

EDIT: 07/24 0742 CT: Here's a list of the latest UI3 URL parameters, Note the one at the top!

UI3 Help

Blue Iris UI3 Help

bp2008.github.io

 

[opens]

I didn't know those options existed, thank you for pointing them out. Unfortunately, though it doesn't solve the problem, I believe the issue is actually on the Chromecast side with a built-in timeout of 10min. Not sure if there are any casting scripts that can overwrite this when displaying a webpage.

 

[TonyR]

I didn't know those options existed, thank you for pointing them out. Unfortunately, though it doesn't solve the problem, I believe the issue is actually on the Chromecast side with a built-in timeout of 10min. Not sure if there are any casting scripts that can overwrite this when displaying a webpage.

Well, that sux...
It might be easier script-wise to "refresh" the webpage being cast, therefore resetting the timer....maybe.

 

[opens]

I managed to figure it out! The key was to enable developer mode on the Chromecast, which allows you to extend its built-in timeout. I found this solution so helpful that I decided to create a blog post about it. Hopefully, this information will benefit others who may be facing the same issue.

Luke Pembleton - How to Cast Blue Iris UI3

A guide to casting Blue Iris UI3 to a Chromecast device and monitor

lpembleton.rbind.io

 

[risquare]

@opens Would you be so kind to share what URL are you using to stream from Blue Iris. I tried several and nothing seem to work getting error messages "Unsupported URL" from catt . I used a public URL of a movie and it worked fine. So my catt is properly installed and working. I need to provide a good feed from Blue Iris. Here is what I am trying with

http://192.168.1.5:91/mjpg/MG/video.mjpg

http://192.168.1.5:91/h246/MG/temp.h246

MG is the name of the camera and the first URL is streaming O.K. to a regular browser
I also tried to embed the credentials in the URL like that but this didn't help either

http://username:password@192.168.1.5:91/mjpg/MG/video.mjpg

 

[TonyR]

@opens Would you be so kind to share what URL are you using to stream from Blue Iris. I tried several and nothing seem to work getting error messages "Unsupported URL" from catt . I used a public URL of a movie and it worked fine. So my catt is properly installed and working. I need to provide a good feed from Blue Iris. Here is what I am trying with

http://192.168.1.5:91/mjpg/MG/video.mjpg

http://192.168.1.5:91/h246/MG/temp.h246

MG is the name of the camera and the first URL is streaming O.K. to a regular browser
I also tried to embed the credentials in the URL like that but this didn't help either

http://username:password@192.168.1.5:91/mjpg/MG/video.mjpg

He's casting from UI3, BI's built-in web server. The URL's can be found where he linked...just look for them...I found them.

 

[risquare]

Yep. Found it and it doesn't work either

http://192.168.1.5:91/ui3.htm

http://username:password@192.168.1.5:91/ui3.htm

catt -d livingroom cast "

http://user:pass@192.168.1.5:91/ui3.htm

"

Still getting Unsupported URL
Error: yt-dlp extractor failed.

 

[TonyR]

Yep. Found it and it doesn't work either

http://192.168.1.5:91/ui3.htm

http://username:password@192.168.1.5:91/ui3.htm

catt -d livingroom cast "

http://user:pass@192.168.1.5:91/ui3.htm

"

Still getting Unsupported URL
Error: yt-dlp extractor failed.

This URL (

http://192.168.1.5:91/ui3.htm

) brings up BI's web server on a browser on a PC that's on the same LAN as the TV, right?

 

[risquare]

This URL (

http://192.168.1.5:91/ui3.htm

) brings up BI's web server on a browser on a PC that's on the same LAN as the TV, right?

Yes it does bring BI live video on a regular browser.

Here is what I'm getting at the Ubuntu machine that runs catt


catt -d livingroom cast "

http://192.168.1.5:91/ui3.htm

"
ERROR: Unsupported URL:

http://192.168.1.5:91/ui3.htm

Error: Remote resource not found.

 

[risquare]

UPDATE :

Working now !!!!

The problem was that I was using the command "cast"
The correct command to use is "cast_site"

Furthermore I found that this URL works better as it presents the image from the camera only without the side bar and controls to the left.

http://192.168.1.5:91/mjpg/MG/video.mjpg

where MG is the short name of the camera in BI