Re: [gentoo-user] gentoo on a raspberry pi with omxplayer

[William Kenworthy]

On 31/12/12 06:17, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Sun, 30 Dec 2012 19:27:21 +0800
> William Kenworthy <billk@×××××××××.au> wrote:
>
>> Hi, I have a working gentoo base system on a new RPI B model.  I am
>> starting to add X and ratpoison with the aim of using omxplayer to a
>> nfs share from my mythbox, but hope someone else has been there
>> before me.
>>
>> In reality, I would like to just run omxplayer on a minimum
>> framebuffer, but not sure if it will use the acceleration (google
>> hits are ambiguous) as Ive bought the mpeg2 codec licence.
>>
>> Any hints/guides on how to do this could save me a lot of time :)
>
>
> Hi Bill,
>
> I have no experience using omxplayer on a Pi connecting to a mythbox,
> but i do have experience running several ports of xbmc on a Pi to play
> media (I reckon they are comparable), and I will happily share my
> conclusions with you:
>
> It's not worth the effort.
>
> No matter what you do, no matter what tweaks you try to employ, the Pi
> just does not have enough CPU grunt to do the job. Oh, it's fine with
> small low-resolution files and straightforward audio, but sooner or
> later you'll want to run some media that needs more and the Pi falls
> down on that score. It's usually because it has to decode the audio in
> software on the CPU. In my case I don;t have kit I can passthrough
> audio to (I use a regular TV), so YMMV if you have decent audio kit.
>
> I eventually gave up trying to coerce my Pi into working and asked
> Santa Claus for an Xtreamer Ultra 2 instead (he complied) and all my
> HTPC problems are fixed.
>
> If your intent is to learn something by all means proceed (you will
> learn, and lots of it :-). But if you are looking for something to use
> that works, it's probably only fair you know up front the odds of
> success are not good.
>
>

Thanks for the conclusions ... I agree in part at least that its
underpowered (already mildly overclocking it and using distcc) but its
both a learning experience and hopefully will be useful.

It will play the files I am interested in (I tested using xbmc), however
I am not as interested in gaudy eye candy (which seems to be what xbmc
is all about) as in something easy to use - and myth integration was
woeful on the version I tried.

I have (after an overnight compile) a working X on framebuffer (tested
at 720p) using ratpoison - omxplayer is now compiling.

I am thinking of a simple ncurses or perltk interface to spawn omxplayer
with a seleced file - need nothing more complex than that.  I already
have a "myth job" transcoding off-air recordings to an ipad friendly
720p with proper descriptive file names so I am aiming to start out with
a similar, quite basic setup.

I have overcome the versioning mismatch in the various components and
the licence is enabled according to a test.  Did you use the licenced
mpeg2 playback?

BillK