PiVT is a VT playout server for Raspbery Pi, which wraps OMXPlayer to provide seamless(-ish) playback and network control.
Written in Python, two modes are provided, either network-controlled or playlist
mode. In network-controlled mode, a video is looped continuously until commands
are received from a simple telnet interface (connect and press h <ENTER> for
a list of the commands). A client, PiVTDesktop is available at
https://github.com/YSTV/PiVTDesktop
Playlist mode takes a simple playlist from the configuration file and loops it, for example for digital signage applications.
git clone git://github.com/YSTV/PiVT.git
The YAML and pexpect modules for Python are required for PiVT. For Raspbian, run something like this to install them:
sudo apt-get install python-pexpect python-yaml
For smooth video playback, at least 128MB RAM must be assigned to the GPU, use
raspi-config to configure this.
Configuration can either be supplied on the command line or within a YAML configuration file. A sample, config.yaml, is provided. At least one valid playlist item or stopvideo is required so something is always played.
To specify arguments with the command line, say python PiVT.py --help
for a full listing of command line options. It is not possible to set some
options (such as playlists) from the command line
Ensure you can launch OMXPlayer and play a video correctly. Then do:
python PiVT.py --config config.yaml
As an additional feature, cleanloop mode can be enabled when an OMXPlayer
build that implements the --loop flag is available, for example at
https://github.com/stewiem2000/omxplayer/tree/seamless-looping
This can be a little temperamental, but means the stopvideo will seamlessly
restart at the end provided the source video is seamless, by continually
looping it in the background.
sudo python PiVTDaemon.py start --config /absolute/path/to/file.yaml
This will start PiVT as a daemon and return immediately, it will run in the background
- Added a more helpful error message when no stopvideo/playlist video could be loaded at all
- Version number now shown as part of help output
- Complete rewrite to hook OMXPlayer using pexpect and Python
- Significantly increased stability and reduced random crashes, added error handling and recovery
- Playlist can be set in config file in place of a single stop video - will loop continuously for digital signage applications unless overridden by network
- Added auto mode to play next loaded video immediately instead of returning to playlist
- Added seamless loop mode for stop videos which line up exactly, provided suitable OMXPlayer version installed (see above)
- Added daemonisation system to run PiVT with console disconnected
- File list now maintained internally and updated periodically, retrieval of list for clients is much faster
- Bugs when changing file types now resolved
- Configuration can be loaded from text file or set on command line
- Reduced delays switching between videos
- Added option to log to file
All credit to Edgar Hucek and Petr Baudis (and others!) for the underlying video playing software, see http://github.com/popcornmix/omxplayer