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MiracleCast: Miracast / WiFi Displays Come To Linux

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  • MiracleCast: Miracast / WiFi Displays Come To Linux

    Phoronix: MiracleCast: Miracast / WiFi Displays Come To Linux

    For months now David Herrmann has been working on a new project known as OpenWFD for open-source WiFi displays on Linux. OpenWFD is an open-source implementation of the WiFi Display Standard / Miracast. That work is now showing success and as part of that Herrmann has just announced Miraclecast as a component to providing open-source Miracast/WFD support on the Linux desktop...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    Best not to talk about OpenWFD too much though, given that his blog describes that as a throw-away effort, with MiracleCast being a ground-up rewrite based on what he learned from the first try.

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    • #3
      I'm interested in this but what's the difference between this and just doing some form of compressed desktop sharing? Couldn't I accomplish this with VLC?

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      • #4
        Originally posted by schmidtbag View Post
        I'm interested in this but what's the difference between this and just doing some form of compressed desktop sharing? Couldn't I accomplish this with VLC?
        The advantage of Miracast is that it specs for h264 video streaming rather than the traditional image diffs used by most other rdps, which lets you get much higher and more fluid framerates through them.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by schmidtbag View Post
          I'm interested in this but what's the difference between this and just doing some form of compressed desktop sharing? Couldn't I accomplish this with VLC?
          There are two big differences, both related to vendor buy-in:

          1. You'll be able to walk into a store like Best Buy and grab a WiFi-enabled TV or display off the shelf. No need to use an ARM Linux box to build your own aftermarket receiver.

          2. It uses H.264 as its transport encoding and there's already a patchset for the AMD open-source video drivers to allow that to happen on the GPU.

          In other words, once all the pieces are ready, you'll be able to easily redirect your rendered video stream over WiFi to a TV or wireless display with high enough quality to play games and watch movies and it'll happen without bogging down your CPU.

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          • #6
            ...I'm just pissed that, last I checked, it was only spec'd for WiFi.

            My wired LAN is switched gigabit and reaches everywhere in the house. The WiFi is 802.11g (Why pay for more when the DSL is only 5MBit?), isolated on a separate leg of the router, doubly locked with WPA2-PSK and a captive portal I doubt a TV would know how to log into, and only used as a way for my OpenPandora and other family members' smartphones to access the 'net wirelessly.
            Last edited by ssokolow; 17 February 2014, 11:20 PM.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by ssokolow View Post
              ...I'm just pissed that, last I checked, it was only spec'd for WiFi.
              Read the blog post

              miracled hides the transport-type of each peer so you can use streaming protocols on-top of any available link-type (given the remote side supports the same). Therefore, we?re not limited to Wifi-P2P, but can use Ethernet, Bluetooth, AP-based Wifi and basically any other transport with an IP layer on top. This is especially handy for testing and development.
              All opinions are my own not those of my employer if you know who they are.

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              • #8
                Originally posted by Ericg View Post
                Read the blog post
                miracled hides the transport-type of each peer so you can use streaming protocols on-top of any available link-type (given the remote side supports the same). Therefore, we?re not limited to Wifi-P2P, but can use Ethernet, Bluetooth, AP-based Wifi and basically any other transport with an IP layer on top. This is especially handy for testing and development.

                But I don't have a need for a remote desktop protocol (be it VNC, RDP, MiracleCast, or what have you) and the TVs and wireless displays you buy in stores won't be running miracled. They'll most likely be sticking to just what the standard calls for and no more in order to save time and money.

                That means I'd still either have to build my own receiver using a Pi or put them on the 802.11g leg of the network which is locked by a captive portal, doesn't see the wired LAN, and has nowhere near as much bandwidth to throw around as the wired side.

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by ssokolow View Post
                  But I don't have a need for a remote desktop protocol (be it VNC, RDP, MiracleCast, or what have you) and the TVs and wireless displays you buy in stores won't be running miracled. They'll most likely be sticking to just what the standard calls for and no more in order to save time and money.
                  MiracleCast is an implementation of Miracast, which is a standard supported by many TVs, smartphones, tablets, and specialized stand-alone HDMI dongles. Ideally any device that supports Miracast, which is a lot, should support MiracleCast.

                  The only problem is that there are a lot of slightly different Miracast devices that are not fully compatible, but it sounds like the devs are aware of this and are planning to make it compatible with as many devices as possible.

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                  • #10
                    I just go a wifi enabled TV actually, so this sounds like a convenient timing. Thanks, developers!

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