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A Foolproof Raspberry Pi Media Player
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Frankfort, Kentucky, makes it against the law to shoot off a policeman's tie.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Sunday November 24 2019, @06:53PM (11 children)
Based on my experience with tablets and similar computers such as the BeagleBone, Raspberry Pis, particularly older models, could have problems doing sustained video playback. Maybe the Pi 4 is powerful enough to handle it.
Even so, it almost certainly has to use hardware decode, and that means MPEG4/H.264 video only. No VP9 or VP8. (I can hardly wait for the day we get the AV1 codec in hardware.) Sure, it can decode any kind of video in software, but I have doubts it can do it in a satisfactory manner. Will get dropped frames, and other problems. And, it may strain to do 1080p, let alone higher resolutions.
Another problem is overheating. I have a stick computer, an ASUS TS10. It works fine if you're just viewing text, still images, and short videos. But play a long video, something over 15 minutes,, and it will overheat.
Whipping up a script to automate the playback is cute, but that's the least of the problems
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday November 24 2019, @11:47PM (6 children)
RPi4 should decode pretty much anything thrown at it, once whatever OS it's using (e.g. Raspbian or LibreELEC) has been updated.
The lack of AV1 hardware decode on anything is annoying. It missed the window for RPi4, and I doubt it's coming to Ryzen 4000 APUs (Zen 2 + Navi?) in January. Unfortunately, parasites have crawled out of the woodwork and are threatening to shake down anybody who deploys AV1:
https://www.ibc.org/manage/av1-codec-wars-erupt/3737.article [ibc.org]
https://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=130840 [streamingmedia.com]
https://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=130849 [streamingmedia.com]
It's unclear how much improvement AV1 will deliver over H.265. It might be on par [bbc.co.uk] or up to 20% better. The real fight might be VVC/H.266 [wikipedia.org] vs. AV1 or AV2. A rapidly developing H.266 and patent trolls may crush the dream of a dominant open and royalty-free codec.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 25 2019, @01:29AM (5 children)
LibreELEC != OS [libreelec.tv]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday November 25 2019, @02:18AM (4 children)
It is an operating system (Linux distribution) intended for installation on SD cards. The tagline even says "Just enough OS for Kodi".
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 25 2019, @04:08AM (3 children)
Yep. You were right and I was wrong [distrowatch.com].
I played with LibreELEC a bit a while back, and while I did use a LibreELEC ISO, it wasn't clear to me that it was a distinct distribution.
Had I found that it met my needs (that's not a knock on LibreElec, I just didn't like it all that much), I likely would have found that out when I attempted to install it on my preferred distribution.
Mea culpa.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Monday November 25 2019, @04:21AM (2 children)
IMO: It's best for people who already like to use Kodi, particularly with addons. I put LibreELEC on 2GB RPi4s hooked up to TVs, which can be controlled with the TV's remote using HDMI CEC, and use a 4GB RPi4 with Raspbian for desktop stuff.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 25 2019, @09:28PM (1 child)
I looked at Kodi and by default it seemed to want to automatically connect to various servers without asking me, which I didn't like. Other than that, I couldn't see anything much useful to me that VLC couldn't provide. I certainly didn't need it to download media. I can use a web browser and / or a file transfer client for that.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday November 25 2019, @09:55PM
The killer app is streaming. Streaming for free from random servers across the world.
https://troypoint.com/best-kodi-addons/ [troypoint.com]
https://troypoint.com/how-to-install-exodus-on-kodi/ [troypoint.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday November 25 2019, @02:41PM
I am using an odroid c1+ for continuous video playback, using kodi. It is hd so not too taxing. Hours at a time 4 days a week. No problems so far, in the second year.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday November 25 2019, @10:22PM (2 children)
My original raspi had problems with videos sometimes using XBMC and it would get warm. Er, Kodi. Er, whatever it's being called now - moved on to a plex install. And when I had it running I mostly used it for mp3 playback.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday November 25 2019, @10:52PM (1 child)
Original, you say? As in Raspberry Pi 1 Model B or a later model?
http://archive.is/BtR1u [archive.is]
https://archive.is/BtR1u/a257318a8001d64cbde761bc8420574ffcd8c99e [archive.is]
Performance is up tremendously and hardware decoding of video is improved. Although Pi4 will still be "hot" or warm most of the time depending on case/cooling.
All of the older models should have been capable [wikipedia.org] of smooth 1080p30 video playback. RPi3 and a revision of RPi2B could decode 1080p60. Now RPi4 should do up to 4K60 H.265.
Because Broadcom's chips are TV-oriented, I expect the RPi5 to decode AV1. And it might even decode 8K resolution video, something nobody is asking for with a straight face.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday November 26 2019, @03:43PM
Yep, Pi 1 B. But it could handle a limited amount of playback, and of course I never had any problem with audio decoding. And sure, that's the nice thing about improved models - maybe I need to lay my hands on a new one. Haven't been much into it for quite awhile, played around with arduino a bit for a specific project. But of late have been too busy for any fun like that.
This sig for rent.