Stream video to TV over HDMI in background?

Question

I have a powerful computer running Linux (Debian) desktop. I use it for work as well as for night-time computations. So it's running 24x7. I also have non-smart TV with HDMI input and dedicated Pioneer receiver for sound. What I want is to use my computer as a media server. I do not want to connect TV as a second monitor because it will interfere with my work. I want some application that will run in background, stream content directly to HDMI and digital audio and be operated by some client. I have looked at the Kodi but didn't find out how to run it in background and how to dedicate HDMI port to it. I have looked at Plex but it requires Plex Client App on output device. I could buy something like Chromecast as a last resort but I will be not able to connect my audio receiver then.

Are there any options to achieve what I want?

Answer 1

The way you do this is to connect the TV as a second monitor, but configure it as a separate X screen so it's no part of your main desktop (and therefore doesn't interfere with your work). Then you can run any kind of application(s) you like on the second X screen, streaming or whatever.

I doing this on my system with an Intel card, BTW. Here's the relevant part of my xorg.conf:

Section "Device"
    Identifier "intel0"
    Driver "intel"
    Option "AccelMethod" "sna"
    Option "ZaphodHeads" "VGA1,HDMI1,DP1"
    Screen 0
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier "intel1"
    Driver "intel"
    Option "AccelMethod" "sna"
    Option "ZaphodHeads" "HDMI3"
    Screen 1
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "screen0"
    Device "intel0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "screen1"
    Device "intel1"
EndSection

What you need to do may vary according to your graphics card (which you didn't tell us about), and you will have to vary the output names. I think I head to use the sna to work around some issue with the video overlay that may no longer be relevant.

First screen is :0, you need to start any application for the second screen with -display :1 or whatever variation of the commandline switch the application uses.