The Raspberry Pi is an inexpensive Linux Computer which you can for example use to play back videos (up to Fill-HD). This page shows you how to set it up:
Making the RapberryPi run a video at startup
Install The Raspbian image (NOOBS is okay for the beginning, but it wastes a bit space on the SDcard for the recovery image which we don't need. Copy the raspbian on the card.
Once that is done, connect to the Internet (Ethernet + DHCP) and bring the OS up to date:
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get dist-upgrade sudo apt-get install raspberrypi-net-mods
Test video playback: source
omxplayer /opt/vc/src/hello_pi/hello_video/test.h264
add option -r to change display frame rate and resolution to the one that the movie file has:
omxplayer -r /opt/vc/src/hello_pi/hello_video/test.h264
make a file startup_script.sh (shell script) with the following content:
clear echo "Startup script running" echo "some useful information here" sleep 2 omxplayer -r movie.mp4 --loop
you will have to make this executable with
sudo chmod 775 startup_script.sh
and you can test if it works by running it
./startup_script.sh
Make it log in automatically
You don't want a password prompt when the raspberry boots source
Edit the inittab file.
sudo nano /etc/inittab
Disable the getty program. Find this line and comment it our by adding a # at the beginning of the line
#1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 115200 tty1
Add login program to inittab. Add the following line just below the commented line
1:2345:respawn:/bin/login -f pi tty1 </dev/tty1 >/dev/tty1 2>&1
This will run the login program with pi user and without any authentication
Save and Exit.
Make it start the script automatically:
sudo nano .bashrc
and right at the end put:
if [ $(tty) == /dev/tty1 ]; then ./startup_script.sh fi
(that last 'if' makes sure the script is not starting in an x session)
Synchronizing multiple RaspberryPi
maybe you want to have the different Pi different host names, so you don't get confused
sudo raspi-config
install pexpect:
sudo apt-get install python-pexpect
install python bindings for DBUS https://github.com/LEW21/pydbus
sudo apt-get install python3-setuptools sudo wget https://github.com/LEW21/pydbus/archive/master.zip sudo unzip master.zip rm master.zip cd pydbus-master/ sudo chmod 777 setup.py sudo ./setup.py build sudo ./setup.py install
sudo apt-get remove omxplayer sudo rm -rf /usr/bin/omxplayer /usr/bin/omxplayer.bin /usr/lib/omxplayer sudo wget -O- http://yokto.net/0/omxplayer/omxplayer-3176db4.tar.bz2 | sudo tar -C / -xjvf - sudo ln -sf /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libpcre.so.3 /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libpcre.so.1 sudo wget -O /usr/bin/omxplayer-sync https://github.com/turingmachine/omxplayer-sync/raw/master/omxplayer-sync sudo chmod 0755 /usr/bin/omxplayer-sync sudo wget https://github.com/turingmachine/omxplayer-sync/raw/master/synctest.mp4
Make a local network, connect them with Ethernet cable (+Hub if more then two) and configure static IPs source
sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces
start on master:
omxplayer-sync -mubv synctest.mp4
start on slave:
omxplayer-sync -lubv synctest.mp4
-b flag to make screen background black
(remove v for verbose mode later once everything works)
Notes
other resources
Use multiple RasberryPis to make a video wall (needs one extra server-Pi, plus one Pi per client) Piwall
Backup and copy
let's say /dev/mmcblk0 is your card reader
make a backup of SDCard:
sudo dd if="/dev/mmcblk0" of="Pi.bin"
put backup on card:
sudo dd bs=4M if=Pi.bin of=/dev/mmcblk0
(both these commands take a long time and the terminal seems like frozen, there is no progress feedback)
Power
to switch on just plug in the power. Make sure HDMI is connected first and Beamer/Screen is on prior to plugging in the power, otherwise the screen might not be recognized.
reboot:
sudo reboot -h
shutdown:
sudo shutdown -h now
Set the time
dpkg-reconfigure tzdata
Note that the Raspberry is searching online for the current time when booting. If there is no Internet the time might not be accurate.