dart_cast

New

• MediaSource readers may now open asynchronously — an async function satisfies the reader, so sources backed by Android content:// URIs, network handles or a decrypt handshake no longer need a Stream.fromFuture(...) workaround (#12). Existing synchronous readers are unaffected; an async* reader needs a declared return type, which the MediaSource docs show

Fixed

• AirPlay: receivers advertising both AirPlay 1 and AirPlay 2 video (Apple TVs, the macOS receiver) now get one AirPlay 1 attempt if the AirPlay 2 /play returns 404. 0.7.0 sent every AirPlay 2 device down the V2 path and never offered V1, so a device implementing only the older endpoints could not play at all. The retry is gated on the device advertising bit 0 — it is not a return of the blind version probe 0.7.0 removed

Documentation only — no code changes.

• AirPlay's status, the reason video fails on the receivers tested, and how to check your own device moved out of the README into doc/AIRPLAY.md
• Protocol status is scoped to the devices actually tested rather than reading as a verdict on AirPlay itself; results from other hardware, an Apple TV especially, are welcome
• The feature table distinguishes "implemented but blocked by the receiver" from "not built yet"

AirPlay 2 and DLNA fixes plus caller-supplied byte sources, driven by testing against a TCL Google TV.

Breaking

• AirPlay selects its protocol version from the advertised feature bits instead of probing /play; devices with no video bit throw UnsupportedFeatureException immediately

• AirPlaySession.connect() pairs with every AirPlay 2 receiver, so it can now throw NeedsPairingException where it previously returned a session. If you call connect() on an AirPlay 2 device and do not catch that exception, this release will start throwing at you. The old behaviour was not useful — the session it returned had fallen back to a legacy path those devices reject, so it could not cast anything — but it did not fail either. Handle it by prompting for the on-screen passcode and calling pairSetup(pin), or by catching it and offering Chromecast/DLNA instead:

  try {
    await session.connect();
  } on NeedsPairingException {
    // Show the code on the TV, then:
    await session.pairSetup(pinTheUserTyped);
    await session.connect();
  }
  

  Most smart TVs use PIN-less transient pairing and never reach this path; it is devices that demand a passcode which now surface it.

• AirPlayMediaController.dispose() returns Future<void>; play() takes startPositionSeconds: instead of startPosition:

Fixed

• DLNA: seeking works when casting HLS — it previously stopped playback outright
• DLNA: HLS casts report the real duration instead of one second
• DLNA: a playback command no longer crashes with ClientException: Connection closed before full header was received when the renderer drops an idle connection — the action is retried once (#9)
• DLNA: a renderer that accepts a connection then stalls fails after 10s instead of hanging the caller forever
• DLNA: routine connection churn no longer floods the log with errors
• AirPlay: AirPlay 2 receivers pair and establish a session correctly — PIN-less transient pairing, RTSP setup and keep-alive, all confirmed against a real TV. The package previously fell back to a legacy path these devices reject
• AirPlay: failures report a cause instead of being swallowed — an unsupported device, a rejected handshake or a receiver-reported error now surfaces
• AirPlay: further video-path corrections (protocol version selection, playback-state parsing, request ordering, startPosition). Unverified end to end — no receiver tested accepts a video URL, so nothing past the handshake can be exercised yet

New

• MediaSource + MediaProxy.registerSource() + CastMedia.source() — cast bytes the package cannot open itself: Android content:// URIs, Flutter assets, decrypted or in-memory content (#12). The application supplies a range-aware reader; the proxy handles HTTP, byte ranges and seeking. Works on Chromecast, DLNA and AirPlay, since it uses the same route local files already use
• AirPlayTimingServer, transient pairing, PlaybackInfo.error
• HlsParser.totalDuration / extractSegments, MediaProxy.probeHlsDuration / parseTimeSeekRange
• tool/airplay_probe.dart, tool/airplay_hardware_check.dart, tool/dlna_hardware_check.dart, tool/chromecast_hardware_check.dart — hardware verification scripts

Known limitations

• AirPlay video does not play on the TV tested and cannot: that receiver exposes no /play endpoint, and Apple's own QuickTime fails on it identically — use Chromecast
• DLNA sidecar subtitles did not render on the TV tested; embed SRT in MKV

New

• Alt-audio HLS sources (split video + audio) now play on Chromecast and DLNA — pure-Dart MPEG-TS remuxer combines them into one muxed stream
• MediaProxy.registerAltAudioMuxed() — synthetic single-stream HLS master backed by per-segment muxing
• HlsParser.extractAudioRenditions + audioGroup on extractVariants entries
• TS DVB-table stripper for proxied video/mp2t, on by default; opt out via registerMedia(stripDvbTables: false)
• MediaLoadFailedException from loadMedia() on LOAD_FAILED / IDLE+ERROR / 15s timeout, carrying the receiver-reported reason
• HLS LOAD retries pass-through → muxer + stripper on failure, with requestId / mediaSessionId filtering against stale responses
• ChromecastSession.enableReceiverDebugNamespaces (default false) — opt-in CaC + debugoverlay subscribe and verbose receiver logging for debugging

Fixed

• setSubtitle() activates the correct track (was always trackId=1)
• CORS Access-Control-Allow-Origin echoes the receiver Origin when the LOAD includes a tracks array
• State machine accepts loading → {buffering, paused, idle} and idle → {buffering, playing, paused}
• DLNA: failed loadMedia returns to idle instead of stuck in loading
• Content-Length only forwarded when the body streams through unchanged
• Proxy segment / subtitle URLs end in .ts / .vtt for the Chromecast URL-extension probe
• image/* Content-Type on proxied MPEG-TS subresources rewritten to video/mp2t

Fixed

• Pub points (static analysis): Resolved the six pana lints under lib/ that kept the 0.5.0 static-analysis score at 40/50:
  • curly_braces_in_flow_control_structures in ts_keyframe_scanner.dart and airplay/auth/airplay_auth.dart — single-statement if bodies now wrapped in braces.
  • use_super_parameters on the two CastMessage_* enum constructors — converted to super-parameter syntax.
  • camel_case_types on the hand-written CastMessage_ProtocolVersion / CastMessage_PayloadType bindings in chromecast/proto/cast_channel.dart — suppressed via a file-level // ignore_for_file: camel_case_types, since these identifiers intentionally mirror the names protoc --dart_out would emit for Chromium's cast_channel.proto.

Changed

• protobuf: Upgraded protobuf dependency from ^3.1.0 to ^6.0.0 for the latest performance improvements and bug fixes (#6). Hand-written CastMessage bindings remain compatible; no API changes.
• Minimum Dart SDK: Bumped sdk constraint from ^3.0.0 to ^3.7.0 (required by protobuf 4.1.1+).

Fixed

• Analyzer warnings: Resolved pre-existing unused variable warnings in test files
• Code formatting: Applied dart format to all source files

Fixed

• Proxy IP selection: MediaProxy now picks the local interface on the same subnet as the target cast device, fixing casting failures on Android where the proxy would bind to a non-WiFi address unreachable by the cast device
• Concurrent loadMedia guard: All protocol sessions (Chromecast, AirPlay, DLNA) now ignore duplicate loadMedia() calls while one is already in progress, preventing multiple LOAD messages from being sent to the device
• Socket disconnect detection: Chromecast session now handles message stream errors and unexpected closures, transitioning to disconnected state so the app can react (previously the session stayed "connected" after a network drop)