Castor addresses the limitation of smart TVs and screen mirroring by enabling direct, high-quality casting of arbitrary web video streams from the terminal. It targets power users and developers seeking a robust solution for streaming content from web pages or direct URLs to their TVs without quality loss or lag. The primary benefit is seamless, full-quality video playback initiated and controlled via a command-line interface.

How It Works

Castor employs headless Chrome, controlled via the Chrome DevTools Protocol, to navigate web pages and identify video streams by monitoring network traffic. It then executes a short pipeline to initiate playback, often involving clicks within the largest iframe, to find and extract the direct stream URL. This extracted stream is transcoded in real-time using ffmpeg to a format compatible with the target TV, supporting hardware acceleration where available, and then cast.

Quick Start & Requirements

• Installation: Recommended: Native binary. Alternatives: Homebrew (brew install --cask stupside/tap/castor on macOS), Docker (Linux-only), or from source (requires Go 1.26+ and cmake).
• Prerequisites: Chrome/Chromium (for headless extraction), ffmpeg, and ffprobe must be on the system's PATH. Building from source requires Go 1.26+ and cmake.
• Resource Footprint: Auto-downloads Whisper models (~75MB for default tiny.en). Transcoding can be CPU-intensive unless hardware acceleration is utilized.
• Links: Project repository: https://github.com/stupside/castor

Highlighted Details

• Extracts and casts the "real stream" from web pages or direct URLs for full quality.
• Supports auto-generated subtitles transcribed by Whisper and burned into the video stream.
• Configurable sources allow users to define how titles are resolved against custom templates and proxies.
• Leverages DLNA/UPnP for broad compatibility with most smart TVs and networked players.
• Prioritizes hardware encoding (VA-API, VideoToolbox) for transcoding when available, falling back to software (libx264).

Maintenance & Community

Details regarding notable contributors, sponsorships, community channels (e.g., Discord/Slack), or a public roadmap are not provided in the README.

Licensing & Compatibility

The README does not specify a software license. Users are responsible for ensuring their use complies with website terms of service and local laws, particularly concerning copyright infringement. Castor does not decrypt or circumvent DRM.

Limitations & Caveats

Castor's extraction mechanism relies on automated browser interaction and may not work on all websites, particularly those with complex anti-automation measures. It explicitly does not handle DRM-protected content. The Docker image has networking limitations on macOS and Windows, requiring specific configurations or native binary use. Chromecast support is experimental and contributions are welcomed.