Using mkchromecast in Linux Mint 20

 I used to use mkchromecast in my linux mint 19 without any issue, The installation is pretty straight forward, easy to use, and the best of all, is that mkchromecast is able to cast video with subtitle. 

After I have upgraded my machine to Mint 20, I installed it, and encountered one issue whereby mkchromecast does not pair properly with chromecast due to an issue in the pychromecast version used in ubuntu 20.04 (or linux mint 20 in my case). 

The bug is being reported in here, and was from this page that I found by googling the error.

So to install mkchromecast in linux mint 20 (or ubuntu 20.04), here are the steps:

1. Install the application

$ sudo apt install mkchromecast -y

2. Update pychromecast package to version 4.1.1

$ pip3 install pychromecast==4.1.1

That's all. To use it, just follow below steps:

1. Open a new terminal, and cast a video

$ mkchromecast --video -i myvideo.mp4

2. If you want to cast a video with a subtitle file

$ mkchromecast --video -i myvideo.mp4 --subtitle mysubtitle.srt

3. If you have multiple chromecast device, please use -s, and choose the index of the chromecast device you would like to use

$ mkchromecast --video -i myvideo.mp4 --subtitle mysubtitle.srt -s

4. Casting with basic control like pause (keyboard p), resume (keyboard r), volume up (keyboard u) and volume down (keyboard d)

$ mkchromecast --video -i myvideo.mp4 --subtitle mysubtitle.srt --control

mkchromecast is an excellent tool to cast your video to the big screen, but if you are not comfortable with casting with commands, vlc and google chrome browser are better tools but without the subtitle.