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Version: 11.7.0

Enable Chromecast on the Sender on Android

This article explains how to enable the Chromecast Sender capabilities. This article also documents how you can connect with a custom Chromecast Receiver application.

note

Chromecast support is not available for the Android TV and Fire TV SDKs.

Prerequisites​

  1. Your Sender device needs to be on the same Wi-Fi network as your Chromecast Receiver device.

Add the Chromecast integration​

In order to enable Chromecast on the THEOplayer Android SDK, add the feature integration dependency in your build.gradle file.

implementation 'com.theoplayer.theoplayer-sdk-android:core:+'
implementation 'com.theoplayer.theoplayer-sdk-android:integration-cast:+' // add cast dependency

Set CastOptionsProvider​

To enable Chromecast on Android a CastOptionsProvider should be specified. This class contains the configuration for Chromecast on Android. A DefaultCastOptionsProvider is provided as part of the THEOplayer Android SDK. This DefaultCastOptionsProvider associates the default THEOplayer Chromecast receiver application with your Sender application. You will need to register this class in your AndroidManifest.xml file within a meta-data tag under your application node, as demonstrated at https://github.com/THEOplayer/samples-android-sdk/blob/master/Google-Cast/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml#L17-L19.

<meta-data
    android:name="com.google.android.gms.cast.framework.OPTIONS_PROVIDER_CLASS_NAME"
    android:value="com.theoplayer.android.api.cast.chromecast.DefaultCastOptionsProvider"/>

Optional: Add routing button to your app​

In order to get this button to appear in your application's Toolbar, the easiest way is to include it in the menu XML file for your Activity.

  1. In your res folder add a menu folder

  2. Add an activity_main_menu.xml file

  3. Add the following contents to this file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">
    <item
    android:id="@+id/media_route_menu_item"
    android:title="Cast"
    app:actionProviderClass="androidx.mediarouter.app.MediaRouteActionProvider"
    app:showAsAction="always" />
</menu>
  1. Initialize this new MenuItem in the onCreateOptionsMenu method of your Activity. (Make sure you have an AppCompatActivity).
override fun onCreateOptionsMenu(menu: Menu): Boolean {
    super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu)
    menuInflater.inflate(R.menu.activity_main_menu, menu)
    CastButtonFactory.setUpMediaRouteButton(applicationContext, menu, R.id.media_route_menu_item)
    return true
}

Optional: Add MiniController to your app​

In your main activity xml add the following fragment:

<fragment
    android:id="@+id/castMiniController"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
    android:visibility="gone"
    class="com.google.android.gms.cast.framework.media.widget.MiniControllerFragment" />

Optional: Set a CastStrategy to your THEOplayerConfig​

THEOplayer Android SDK support Chromecast CastStrategy to define the joining behavior.

THEOplayerConfig.Builder()
    .castStrategy(CastStrategy.AUTO)
    .build()

Connect with custom Chromecast Receiver application​

The THEOplayer SDK on your Sender application connects with THEO Chromecast Receiver application by default, but you can connect it to a custom Chromecast Receiver application instead. The default Dolby OptiView Chromecast Receiver application has OptiView Player functionality, but uses Shaka for media playback. If you want to use Google's legacy Media Player Library (MPL) for playback, you will need to use either a custom application or connect to Dolby OptiView's MPL Receiver application, using the appID value of 44BAE7D1. Note that the MPL receiver does not support HLS-CMAF streams.

To connect with a custom Chromecast Receiver application, you can create your own CastOptionsProvider by subclassing com.google.android.gms.cast.framework.OptionsProvider and implementing the getCastOptions method. This approach is further demonstrated at https://github.com/THEOplayer/samples-android-sdk/tree/master/Google-Cast/guides/howto-google-cast-integration#initializing-cast-context, and in the snippet below.

override fun getCastOptions(context: Context): CastOptions =
    CastOptions.Builder()
        .setReceiverApplicationId(DEFAULT_APP_ID)
        .build()