spielab/README.md

Spielab

A native Rust + GPUI app for sharing a Linux Wayland desktop with Apple TV, including system audio.

Features

• Share a screen or window, or create an extended display on supported desktops.
• H.264 video at 720p/30, 1080p/30, or 1080p/60.
• Automatic VA-API hardware encoding with software fallback when hardware is unavailable.
• Selectable 50, 100, or 500 ms playback buffers. These are buffer targets, not total display latency.
• Saved Apple TV pairing and light/dark themes.

Targets modern Apple TVs with HomeKit pairing and PTP timing. HEVC, NVENC, and legacy FairPlay/NTP receivers are not supported yet.

Requirements

• Linux with Wayland, Vulkan graphics drivers, PipeWire, and a working ScreenCast desktop portal.
• Rust, a C linker, pkg-config, FreeType, Fontconfig, libxkbcommon, and libxkbcommon-x11.
• GStreamer (gst-launch-1.0) with pipewiresrc, queue, videoconvert, videoscale, videorate, y4menc, and fdsink. pipewiresrc must support keepalive-time.
• FFmpeg with libx264, plus PipeWire's pw-cat. GPU encoding also requires h264_vaapi, a compatible VA-API driver, and access to /dev/dri/renderD*.
• Apple TV on the same network with AirPlay enabled.

Run

cargo run --locked

1. In Connection, select your Apple TV and enter its code if prompted.
2. Once authorized, Sharing opens. Choose a source, quality, and playback buffer.
3. In the desktop picker, single-click one source, then press Share. Avoid double-clicking on KDE to avoid a known portal crash.
4. Click Start sharing. System audio is included automatically.

Use Disconnect / Cancel at the top right, or Escape, to stop. Settings → Appearance controls dark mode. Disconnecting also removes any temporary extended display.

Pairing and preferences live in $XDG_STATE_HOME/spielab or ~/.local/state/spielab. Override with SPIELAB_STATE_DIR. The optional ./scripts/run.sh uses the checkout's .cargo-home cache by default and reuses .state when present.

For native Linux GUI builds, build.rs supplies a local linker symlink if the xkbcommon-x11 runtime is installed without its development symlink. No system files are modified.

Development

cargo test --locked --no-default-features
cargo clippy --locked --all-targets -- -D warnings

Additional ignored tests exercise real encoding and decoding. Run them with cargo test --locked --no-default-features -- --ignored; they require FFmpeg, and the hardware test requires VA-API H.264 on /dev/dri/renderD128.

CLI examples for discovery, pairing, and mirroring are in examples/.

License and acknowledgments

GPL-2.0-only. Built using airplay2-rs, with protocol references from Doubletake and UxPlay.