I use OSMC on my Raspbery Pi daily and it’s great. I also use YouTube A LOT on my computer. But I am not quite satisfied with the current combination of the two. I would like some opinions and insights on how the general YouTube integration works in media centers in general and OSMC specific.
There are two threads on this forum already but focus on something slightly different than what I want:
The first is just about the YouTube addon which is just a stand alone interface for browsing and playing YouTube videos on XBMC/Kodi. Theoretically I could login with my Google account on this client but practically I can’t because I use two factor authentication and I know there’s a known limitation regarding this.
The second is how to remotely access/control the YouTube addon from your phone. I used Yatze for a couple of days just for sending YouTube links from the phone to OSMC and it was nice (too bad it’s not open source). Then Kore was released and it was an obvious quick replacement. And this is what I use now.
However the issue with Yatze and Kore is that basically what they do is just send the URL of the video over the network to the addon on Kodi and the rest off the control is done with the normal remote. Also I sometimes have some issues sending the URL and being able to play it.
I saw on many “SmartTVs” the YouTube App that do YouTube pairing. From what I see, Google/YouTube offers an API which 3rd party applications can use to pair a TV(hosting the app) with the YouTube app on your phone. And you control the streaming on the TV app from the Android YouTube app. I used it a couple of times and I like the integration a lot.
My first question to you is why isn’t this the main solution used also in OSMC. From somebody with not that much experience with media streaming, it looks that this is the easiest thing to implement as an addon and the most friendly. Am I correct in the assumption that this is done by a generic API that just talks to Google and gets data via it while at the same time I control everything from the YouTube app with no other communication between the phone and the TV? I haven’t been able to do this on OSMC. Is there a way to do it?
The other thing I am curious about is streaming. I know there are things like Chromecast that have a protocol (or rather a collection of protocols) that allow you to stream things from the phone to the TV. This actually involves direct interaction between the app on the phone and the media player. Again, I didn’t find the possibility of connecting my Android phone to OSMC and streaming via this mechanism.
So my second question would be: what are the current technical limitations of streaming on OSMC? Are the protocols and APIs for Android streaming closed or unavailable (you can only do it between Android and Chromecast, and if you want to do it between something else you need to reverse engineer it)? Or are the technologies open and somebody just needs to do the implementation for Kodi/OSMC? And if so, is there an implementation available (or plans to implement one)?
I am hoping for a longer discussion in order to find out some internal regarding all of these things.
Thank you!
This is not entirely correct. Google provides app passwords for just such an instance. I use this function myself. It’s not terribly impractical for a one-time configuration. Sign in with app passwords - Google Account Help
These are questions for the Kodi forums. OSMC is merely the operating system that has been optimized to provide the very best performance of the Kodi media center software on the RasPi and other supported devices. OSMC has little to do with how these functions are implemented and handled by Kodi.
@ActionA: yes, I do use application specific passwords, but at least when I tried it last year they didn’t work either (there’s a known issue about this somewhere).
I know that OSMC is the OS and Kodi the application, but I since there is a growing community on this forum, I was hoping someone would have the knowledge.
Thanks!
If your having an issue with the addon for youtube with 2step verifcation it might be a good idea to seek support from that developer, running the same addon without issues and 2step is turned on so its not an OSMC issue.
Hi!
I tested the youtube addon regarding now in a Kodi installation on my laptop and it looks like they changed the mechanism and you can add the account using an activation code. Interesting, I’ll try it on the OSMC when I get home.
But that is offtopic getting back to what I wanted to know: is there any way to use the YouTube pairing feature? I am currently using the YouTube addon by bromix. Can I do it in this one or is there another addone that would have the feature?
And this works with SmtartTVs (and game consoles, apparently). But I doubt that Google/YouTube is supplying the apps to Samsung, LG and others so I guess somebody developed the app based on some API.
I understand that addons are not part of OSMC, but this is why this thread is is “General Discussions”.
I’m using it for about a year or so … never had any problems other then once or twice redo the pairing.
I now have a smart tv with the YouTube app … no idea if I’ll be using the one in Kodi anymore … but it works
Hmm… I think we are talking about different things.
Login into the Google/YouTube account works.
What I am asking is about pairing with YouTube, meaning being able to control a YouTube stream from the YouTube app in Android. Most SmartTVs do this and it’s very nice.
The only current way of playing something remotely is just sending the URL to the YouTub app on Kodi and using the normal remote (Kore, for ex) to control the video. It loses all interaction with the YouTube app on the phone.
As advised, such a feature, if possible, could only be provided by an add-on to Kodi. Obviously the current Kodi YouTube add-on by bromix doors not provide the feature. You should be looking for info in the support thread for his add-on on the Kodi forum. OSMC (or any other platform/OS for that matter) has no bearing on such a feature.
https://www.youtube.com/tv
(YouTube TV)
It’s basically what I said but as a web page, not an App.
So it would mean that paired streaming this would also work on OSMC it it would only have a browser available (which, as I see, it doesn’t).
Seriously… You need to contact bromix or Kodi if you want their attention for such a feature. OSMC has no bearing. I don’t know how much more clear on the matter we can be here.
getting back to what I wanted to know: is there any way to use the YouTube pairing feature? I am currently using the YouTube addon by bromix. Can I do it in this one or is there another addone that would have the feature?
