VIDEO PLAYER FOR RASPBERRY PI

(update 2015/08/12)

Introduction

Welcome to our new Video Player for Raspberry Pi (RPi) B, B+ and 2. This player upto the latest
update 2015/08/12, is able to play H.264 video upto 1920x1080 resolution (Full HDTV) at 60p
with AAC and MP3 audio. This software player is able to receive many streaming protocols: RTMP,
RTSP, UDP, HTTP, HLS, Youtube, Ustream and Livestream. It uses the OpenMAX core from
Bradcom so is able to change the speed of playback to adjust dinamically the delay to the original
stream in the long run, so it is good for low-latency projects. It also has an internal RTMP server,
that can be used to connect directly from RTMP encoders (such FMLE, Wirecast, or our BMD
encoder softwares). However it doesn't recognize the correct order of fields in interlaced frames, so
should be used with deinterlaced or progressived frames of video.

Up to the moment, H.265 is not covered by hardware (Videocore and firmware), so if you want to
use H.265, you have better to use our BMD Player software. Because videoframes are not decoded
by software, data inside frames cannot be retrieved, so you cannot use this software with serial data
embedded in the videoframes. If you want to use this feature, you have better to use our BMD
Player. However RPi Video Player is excellent for low-latency playback for News and events, and
end deploy of video in an easy and very cheap multipoint receiving framework.

Installing the software

RPi uses an SD card in version B, and microSD in versions B+ and 2. The firmware has some
issues with many of the brands out there, so here you have a list of them:
http://elinux.org/Rpi_SD_cards. We recomment to use 8GBs Samsung Class 6 cards and work fine.
You will have to download the .img file, and use Win32 Disk Imager to burn it into the
SD/microSD card.

Once you downloaded and installed the Win32DiskImager, you will see something like this in the
installation folder you chose.

Insert the SD/microSD card in your reader and your system will detect it. Then you can double click
the Win32DiskImager application. Load the image (.img file) you want to burn.
Now just click the Write button to start recording. Mabbe a message will appear advising you about
corrupting your old contect inside the card.

Just press Yes, and recording will start.

Once the image is completely written into the card (100%), a message will apperar to advise it.

You can extract the card, and plug it into the RPi board. Plug a FAT formatted USB drive, connect
the board to the network and power it, and wait until you have colorbars in the video default output
(HDMI). You can extract the USB drive, and plug it in a computer in the same network. You will
discover a new file recorded called “rpiplayer”. Double click on it and your web browser will open
with the control panel on it.

Enter the default login username and password: admin/admin . By default the network is
configured to be DHCP on, so you will have to enable a DHCP server in your network (i.e: in your
router), so you RPi will acquire an IP from it.

No matter the contents on fields IP, Network mask, router and DNS if IP mode is on DHCP on, it
will be automatically configured from your DHCP enabled router. If you want to use an static IP,
just change the mode, and change whatever value you need and press Save.

The autopilot option will make your RPi work as a player automatically when powered up with the
settings entered in the Decoder tab, so if power is disrupted, when repowering up the device will
start playing a stream without our intervention.

The Player tab has many options that we will describe in detail:
Video Output.- we can select the physical output connection (digital or analog) and the video system
resolution (from SD to HDTV, PAL or NTSC)

Video Apect Ratio.- we can select the aspect ratio 4:3 or 16:9.

Overscan Limits.- if Active = yes, will cut the frame to the dimensions you want. By default
disabled.

Video background.- If you want that video is over a transparent layer to let background to be seen
(by default colorbars). Black will hide the colorbars when the player is running.

Audio Decoding.- Only AAC can be decoded by hardware. MP3 will need software decoding.

Streaming URL.- Here we can enter the URL of the stream to play. Some examples are:
rtmp://server/app/stream
rtsp://server/app/stream
http://server/app/stream/playlist.m3u8
udp://224.0.0.1:5000 (UDP unicast or multicast)

Rude URL.- some servers need it to be “yes” to avoid passing values thru the URL address.

RTSP Transport.- If you play and RTSP stream, just tell here the transport used (UDP,TCP or
HTTP).

Playback Buffer.- You can use buffers from 100 ms to 30000 ms (0.1 sec to 30 sec). We will explain
it better depending on the streaming protocols used. You can fine tune it, using the buttons + and –
in 100 ms increments (0.1 sec), while playing.

Identifier.- It is the MAC of your board, important for unlocking and panel customizing.

Username and Password.- Only for server that uses GET variables in the URL for authentication.

Audio Volume.- An integer value will tell how audio amplifier will change the original audio level
(from -12 to +12 dB). Just select a level where the audio is not saturated. You can also fine tune it
using the buttons + and – while playing.

Once everything is set, you can Save it, and start to Play your stream. A message will appear
advising it => Playing URL... (follow at Status)

You will be able to follow the playback status updated every 3 seconds in the Status tab.
You can Update your encoder module loading our .upd files when published. If the player is
working, a message will tell you to stop it before updating.

Select the .upd file to load, and press the update button. A message, will advice about succesful
upload of the file, and will tell you to follow details also at the Status tab.

Once the proccess has finished, you will be urged to REBOOT the machine to load the new update.

If you want to license your player with no time limit (the 7 seconds of playback by default), you
will have to enter the Unlock tab, and enter your e-mail and press Send. If the device is connected
to the Internet, we will receive a license request notification for your Identifier. Once purchased, we
will send you the Keycode to enter.
If the keycode is ok, the Unlock tab will disappear forever, and you will be able to use any of our
modules with no limits.

There is also a Password tb to change those settings for security reasons. By default the
username/password is admin/admin, but it is not related to the one in the admin's panel.

If you want to change the panel design with your own logo, text and/or CSS design, you can
download the panel zipped from your own encoder. Use the URL of you user panel adding
/panel.zip at the end (i.e http://192.168.1.10/panel.zip). Change whatever you want inside that panel
and to upload it, you need permission from the admin's panel, unlocking the Brand option in the
Network tab. Once unlocked, you have to be logged in the user panel to change it and add to you
user's panel URL /branding?id=identnumber to access the upload menu.
(i.e: http://192.168.1.10/branding?id=549f35060300)

Inside the panel.zip file, there is a bars folder with 4 versions of the color bars, called
originalcolorbars*.jpg . You can change the content of those JPG to use any other graphic you might
use when there is no video.

A new capability has been added to the version 20150812. You will be able to play non-copyrighted
URLs from Youtube, UStream and Livestream. This is very easy to use, just go to a stream in
Youtube that we want to play, for example this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=nhORZ6Ep_jE from NASA TV Education Live. We can just enter the URL as it is in our Play
URL, save it and press Play. In seconds, at Status, we will have a list of sub-streams contained in
that stream. In about 10 seconds, the video output will be rendered with the best quality fitted to
your internet speed connection. If you want to avoid falling back to lower qualitites, you can
directly select the one of your choice, just adding to the end of the Play URL a space and then the
name of the sub-stream you want to play. Suppose you want only to play the 720p substream, then
you will have to enter the URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhORZ6Ep_jE 720p. Pay
special attention to the space in between, so the player can translate your command correctly.
There are 2 different kinds of protocols you can play in your RPi Player:

1.- Quick and continuous stream: UDP, RTSP and RTMP. All of them can be used with low-latency
buffers below 1000 ms (1 sec). If there are network glitches that consumes the buffer not letting it to
adapt the playback speed to the change, some frames will be dropped to ensure a constant delay as
is possible. You can also use large buffers with these protocols however.

2.- Segmented streams: HLS, Youtube, UStream and Livestream. All of them is several flavors of
the HLS protocol. These protocols need that sometimes a very long playlist has to be handled to
achive a smooth playback. That's why once you press the Play button, you will see in Status tab,
first an alnalysis of the sub-streams contained that will take about 10 seconds to finish, then starts
the downloading proccess (3 segments) and then the playback (in less than 5 seconds).

Once the playback process has started, the dynamics of downloading and playing are very stable
even on network glitches. We recommend to use high playback buffers for these protocols, beyond
the 10000 ms (> 10 sec). Perfect for 24/7 usage in not good Internet connections.

And that's all. Have a nice time with the Player module !!!

On August 2015