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

[Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>]

On Sun, 30 Dec 2012 19:27:21 +0800
William Kenworthy <billk@iinet.net.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.


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com