Raspberry Pi Video Looper

Infinitely loop through a directory of video files. DOES NOT support audio, because it uses hello_video's raw H264 decoding. Developed on Raspbian Stretch 2017-11-29.

Installing

Download the install script:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nokemono42/pi-looper/master/install.sh

Add permissions to execute:

chmod +x install.sh

Run the installer:

sudo ./install.sh

Configure

After hello_video is compiled and copied to /usr/local/bin, nano will open the config.txt file so you can specify which folder the H264 videos will be located. Don't worry if the folder doesn't exist yet, you can create it once the installer is done.

Once the location is set, press CTRL-O and ENTER to save and CTRL-X to exit.

Creating videos

For MacOS you can use a tool like ffmpeg to convert mp4 files into raw H264 files.

To convert a single mp4 file:

ffmpeg -y -i video.mp4 video.h264

Or to loop through a folder of videos:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

options="-y -i"

for f in `ls | grep ".mp4$" | sed 's/\.mp4$//'`; do
	ffmpeg $options $f.mp4 $f.h264
done

Transfering videos

Unless you have a spare Linux machine that can mount the ExtFS partition on the SD Card, it's better to just SSH into your Pi. Copy the videos to /home/pi/videos or your desired location.

Auto-run on startup

Modify your local start up script:

sudo nano /etc/rc.local

Before exit 0 add:

sh /home/pi/pi-looper/run-looper.sh &

When done, press CTRL-O and ENTER to save and CTRL-X to exit. Then reboot whenever you are ready.

Optional

Hide startup text

Hide system boot messages:

sudo nano /boot/cmdline.txt

Replace console=tty1 by console=tty3 to redirect boot messages to the third console. Add quiet plymouth.enable=0 logo.nologo to disables boot messages, disables messages from Plymouth, and hide the Raspberry Pi logo in the top left corner. When done, press CTRL-O and ENTER to save and CTRL-X to exit.

Remove Rainbow Screen

Disable initial rainbow image:

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

Add disable_splash=1 at the end of the file. When done, press CTRL-O and ENTER to save and CTRL-X to exit.

Disable TTY1

Disable main console login, so the login prompt doesn't show up on screen. You can always SSH into your Pi.

sudo systemctl disable [email protected]