Telling the backend what the TV is

Telling the backend what the TV is

Until this doc’s change the app reported a cast session exactly like local playback. The only difference on the wire was Matomo’s ma_pn (ChromecastPlayer / AirPlayPlayer). Nothing said which receiver it was.

What exists, per technology

Chromecast   mDNS TXT record (CastDevice.extras)      md model   fn name   ve firmware
             + RECEIVER_STATUS                         ca capabilities  id uuid
                                                       applications[0].displayName
AirPlay      AVAudioSession current route (public)     portName, uid
             (model / IP / manufacturer are private API: not used)
DLNA         not implemented in this app

What leaves the phone

One value object, PlaybackOutput (lib/domain/entities/playback_output.dart):

type          chromecast | airplay          (local sessions send nothing)
model         md                            Chromecast only
firmware      ve                            Chromecast only
receiver_app  receiver app displayName      Chromecast only
name          friendly name                 both
device_key    first 12 hex of SHA-256(salt | id or uid)   both

Never sent: IP/host, MAC, raw Cast id, raw AirPlay uid, bs/ic/other TXT keys. lib/core/utils/device_key.dart does the hashing; playback_output_mapper.dart builds the object.

CastController / AirPlayController.playbackOutput
        │
RemotePlaybackProgressReporter  (the one place that sees session start/end)
        ├─ watch-history POST   →  "playback_output": {...}   (optional field)
        ├─ Matomo ping + events →  dimension4 = type, dimension5 = model
        └─ Marktag Play         →  metadata.playback_output

The Hive progress queue stores the payload as built, so an offline retry keeps the output that was true when the minute was recorded.

Open items

• The backend must accept the optional playback_output object on POST /v1/user/watch-history and ignore it where unknown. The Postman collection is deliberately not updated until it does.
• Matomo needs custom dimensions 4 and 5 configured for the site (action scope).
• ca (capabilities bitmask) is parsed from TXT but not sent yet.