Using Astiga on AndroidTV (Without Casting)

I think maybe community written tutorials might be nice for more complex things, but there is no tab for that yet hence posting in general. For example, I've also seem someone asking for a Roku app. If someone else founds out a way to run it Roku, posting an tutorial could be nice too. Having step-by-step information might make things more accessible for people without the knowledge of time to figure it out.

I've been playing all afternoon today to set up a working way to access Astiga from AndroidTV (without casting), and figured, until there is a native way to set this up (if there will be), it might be nice to share how I did it. This might work on other types of SmartTV OS systems but I'm not sure about the exact options outside of GoogleTV/AndroidTV.

・First, install Kodi.

・Install an app that allows downloading files from the internet. I used "Downloader App" but there are likely more options.

・On your PC (or any other device with an internet browser), go to the github page for Subsonic plug-in for Kodi on PC: https://github.com/gordielachance/plugin.audio.subsonic (note that the link from the "other" tab on the app page in the Astiga web/(Beta)desktop app leads to an old, depreciated version of this plug-in. The description of that one however leads to the same plug-in linked above).

・Click on code, and right click on Download ZIP, then click copy link address. Paste this somewhere, like an empty notepad file. No need to save it, just keep it open for reading. Note that going to the link in your browser downloads the file right away, there is no need for that.

・Go back to your TV, and go to the app you installed to download files. Enter the link you just copied to download it. It's a bit tedious if done by remote, but it'll only need to be done once. After the file is downloaded, you can uninstall the downloading app if you wish.

・Now open Kodi, go to plug-ins, and select install plug-in from ZIP. Then select the ZIP file you just downloaded. It should install the Subsonic plug-in.

・Go to the settings of the plug-in, and set the login credentials that you can find on the Astiga browser/(beta)desktop app on the Apps page.

Astiga should now synchronise trough the plug-in. Your playlists should be present, as well as all files synchronised with Astiga from all your linked storages. If you only use Kodi for this, you can set the plug-in as favourite and remove all other screens in the configure skin menu so Kodi opens on a screen with a shortcut to Subsonic.

If you want Last.fm scrobbling. Download the Last.fm plug-in for Kodi. You can do this trough the plug-in interface in Kodi, as it's in the official repositories. Then just go to settings and fill your credentials in (note that it doesn't take email login, only username, unlike the last.fm website). Also ensure to enable the "Submit streaming radio to Last.fm" or it won't work with Subsonic.

Please do note, there are a few downsides to using this methods over casting from the official Astiga app due to limitations from the Kodi Subsonic plug-in. Decide for yourself if running it inside AndroidTV or casting from phone/web is the way to go for you. From what I found:

・Bitrate is limited to max 320kbps. Higher bitrates will be compressed.

・In some cases loading folders can take rather long.

・Browsing interface isn't ideal, especially for large collections.

・The album art doesn't always show when GoogleTV goes into ambient mode, instead it'll show a Kodi logo.