A no frills video player recipe, that plays videos from a USB-Stick on insertion. Stops on remove. Without user interaction or On Screen Display. Good as backup for live video production or at art galleries for video installation setups. HDMI with audio. True plug and play. See the arty demonstration video from 2019 below.
Hardware from the pool
- The low-spec Raspberry Pi 1 Model B is enough for 1920p30 videoclips.
- Or implement it on other hardware as shown in the video below (a Gigabyte Brix with Intel Atom CPU).
- USB extension cable
- Any USB Stick
Software/System
- Raspberry Pi OS console (without desktop).
- uses a specially compiled mpv-player with direct support for Rasperry Pi’s video acceleration.
- custom udev rule and Python script
- MacOs and Windows formatted USB-Sticks supported
- Plays h264/aac encoded video files (mov, mp4, mkv, …)
further Customization / Scalability
- A Raspberry Pi 1 supports a maximum hardware accelerated decoding resolution of 1080p30 (720p60) and h264 streams encoded up to main profile. Higher resolution and other playable codecs are achieved with other boards.
- A possible remote control through ethernet/wifi.
- Play/Pause and Navigation with hardware buttons or controller.