[PLUGIN] YouTube Cast Receiver

Updated v1.0.4:

  • Added prefetching. When enabled in plugin settings (default is enabled), the next song or video is prefetched when current playback is about to end. This reduces the delay you might encounter when going to the next song.
  • When prefetching is enabled, you also get an option to ‘Prefer gapless Opus streams’. This must be enabled for gapless playback of YT streams on Volumio. Technical reasons according to my limited knowledge of the subject:
    • The other common YT stream format is m4a. However, m4a is not inherently gapless like Opus. It requires special handling which FFmpeg (the decoder library) fails to carry out for YT streams, since they are also of dash type. Simply put, FFmpeg can provide gapless playback of regular m4a, but not dash m4a.
  • The tradeoff, however, is that YT Opus streams are limited to 160kbps. This means if you have a YT Premium subscription, you won’t get 256kbps + gapless playback. This sucks, but you would have to decide whether this tradeoff is worth it. For experimenting with the settings, you can check out Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” album on YT Music. If you disable ‘prefer Opus’, you should hear a slight click between tracks.

    Uploads in your YT Music Library are always provided as m4a streams.

  • Another minor change: the name of your device shown in the Cast menu will now be the same as the one you configured for Volumio (previous versions used the OS hostname).

v1.0.4 is currently in beta channel. To install from beta channel (all steps are mandatory):

  • Uninstall current version.
  • Enable Plugins Test Mode in http://<volumio address>/dev
  • Find the YouTube Cast Receiver plugin in the plugin store. Click the Details button under it and choose latest beta version to install.
  • Restart Volumio.
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