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• RPiLooper V2-Bplus available for RPi B+

  ohthedave • 12/03/2014 at 14:57 • 0 comments

  I've made a downloadable image compatible with Raspberry Pi model B+ available here, along with instructions: http://curioustechnologist.com/post/104242571716/rpilooper-v2-b-seamless-video-looper-for

  Cheers!
  

• Downloadable image available

  ohthedave • 06/27/2014 at 14:44 • 0 comments

  Created an image of v2, which makes it super simple to get up and running. Image link and instructions are here: http://curioustechnologist.com/post/88679377976/seamlessly-looping-raspberry-pi-video-kiosk

• Converting video files into a compatible format

  ohthedave • 06/13/2014 at 15:31 • 0 comments

  One thing RPiLooper is picky about is the format of the video it is fed. Here’s a method of converting your video into a usable format.

  1. Download and install Avidemux: http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/download.html
  2. Open your video file with Avidemux.
  3. Set Video Output to Mpeg4 AVC (x264)
  4. Configure Video Output - under the General tab, change the Encoding Mode to Constant Quantiser (Single Pass), and shift the Quantizer slider down to a value of 5. (You can play around with values here, as the lower the value is the larger the file will be - 5 works for me). Don’t change anything else.
  5. Set Output Format to Video Only. No configuration changes are necessary here.
  6. Save your file.
  7. Profit.

• v2 - automount and play video from USB

  ohthedave • 04/01/2014 at 19:39 • 0 comments

  The first version played videos directly from the SD card, which worked as intended. However, it was difficult to change the video that was playing, and also made the replication process a little difficult. We need a good 10-12 of these running, each with a different video loop, so our preference is to get one Pi functioning just how we need, pull the image off the SD card, and push an identical image onto 10-12 new cards with minimal (or zero) modifications. By auto-mounting a usb drive on boot and pointing our player at the new location, we achieved that goal.

  Step 1 - Install Raspbian
  

  Start with the Raspbian distro from the raspberrypi.org downloads page:http://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspbian_latest

  Raspbian setup instructions:

  To use an image file, you will need to unzip it and write it to a suitable (2GB or larger, 4GB or larger for Raspbian) SD card using the UNIX tool dd. Windows users should use Win32DiskImager. Do not try to drag and drop or otherwise copy over the image without using dd or Win32DiskImager – it won’t work. If you’re still not clear on what to do, the community on the Raspberry Pi Wiki has written a guide for beginners on how to set up your SD card.

  Go ahead and boot up your fresh Raspbian install. Make sure to connect a network cable to your DHCP enabled network, along with a monitor, mouse, and keyboard prior to booting. You’ll get a configuration screen the first time which will let you change the password and make some other changes.

  You can expand the filesystem if you want, but we'll be loading our video onto an external drive.
  

  Do the Change User Password thing too. Remember, you’re changing the password for the “pi” user here.

  Hit Finish, and when it asks if you want to reboot, hit Yes.

  Once you’re booted up, go ahead and run ifconfig and record the ip address (which you’ll have only if you’ve connected your raspberry pi to a network with a DHCP server). You will want to know this later to SSH in to your pi to make changes, if necessary.

  Step 2 - Rebuild hello_pi code examples

  Navigate to the /opt/vc/src/hello_pi directory and run the rebuild.sh script as follows:

  cd /opt/vc/src/hello_pi/<br><br><span>sudo ./rebuild.sh</span>

  Step 3 - Update hello_video.bin
  

  Update the hello_video source code to loop any video played with hello_video.bin:

  cd /opt/vc/src/hello_pi/hello_video/<br><br><span>sudo pico video.c</span>

  Scroll down to around line 120, and look for the following lines of code:

  if(!data_len)<br><span>break;</span>

  Replace the above with this:

  if(!data_len)<br><span>fseek(in, 0, SEEK_SET);</span>

  Note that correct capitalization is important. Use Ctrl+O to save, and Ctrl+X to exit.

  Now, while still in the /opt/vc/src/hello_pi/hello_video/ directory, use the make command to compile the code:

  sudo make

  Step 4 - Mount USB drive

  Go ahead and load a video on a USB drive, using another computer. The drive should be formatted in fat32, and only .h264 or .m4v video files will work with this solution. As with others in the thread referenced above, I suggest using Yamb to rip the video out of the container. Once finished with Yamb, you will have a file with an .h264 or .m4v suffix. Let’s say this video of yours is called testvideo.h264.

  Insert your USB thumb drive, and check your /dev folder to see where it shows up. Mine was at /dev/sda1.  Oh, make sure you have only one USB drive inserted.

  cd /dev<br><br><span>ls</span>

  You'll probably see entries for sda and sda1. You may instead see sba and sba1 (I observed that on one raspbian build I was testing).

  Create a folder to which your USB drive will be mounted, and then proceed with the mount.

  cd /mnt
  
  <span>sudo mkdir usb<br><br></span><span>mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb</span>

  Go ahead and make sure this worked.

  cd /mnt/usb
  
  <span>ls</span>

  You should see the files on your USB drive listed. If so, you're good! 

  Now let's make this drive mount to /mnt/usb every time we boot:

  sudo pico /etc/fstab

  Add the following at the end:

  /dev/sda1	/media/usb	vfat	defaults	0	0

  Ctrl...

  Read more »

• v1 working

  ohthedave • 03/27/2014 at 15:05 • 0 comments

  So the first version is up and running just fine. A few modifications wouldn't hurt:

  1. Would be nice to mount a usb thumb drive and play a video from there. Should be easy, just need to see how consistent the drive mapping ends up being.

  2. Could use some polishing. Would be nice to package it up instead of using a hack.

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