Is it possible to install VLC?

Question

I would like to install VLC on my Raspberry Pi and wonder if it is possible?

I can not find a distribution that supports it, but wonder if anyone has done this or knows a link to a site or group who has done it. My search on google didn't give much help.

Answer 1

Yes, VLC can be installed on the recommended Debian image using sudo apt-get install vlc.

As far as I understand, VLC (>= 1.1) uses the VAAPI to decode video, if it is available. VAinfo should tell you whether hardware decoding is available and since all packages are available for armel, hardware acceleration should work from the technical side. Since omxplayer (part of XBMC) can utilize hardware acceleration VLC should be able to do so too, I guess.

Answer 2

VLC is available in the extra repository for Arch Linux ARM.

However, unless I'm mistaken, VLC doesn't yet support hardware acceleration with the GPU on the Pi. This means playback wont be as good as using OMXPlayer (see this question for more information).

Answer 3

I made a tutorial on how to compile and run VLC with HW acceleration i you're still interested. You can find it at:

http://intensecode.blogspot.com/2013/10/tutorial-vlc-with-hardware-acceleration.html

Answer 4

vanilla vlc can be installed on archlinux using

pacman -Sy vlc

To get hardware acceleration you might want to compile vlc yourself.

There is a tutorial on vlc compilation at:

• http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=59814

which was the basis for gekod's answer above. I tried to create a script for the whole process and am currently letting it run on an archlinux base raspberry PI:

# 
# compile VLC from source to enable hardware acceleration
# WF 2013-12-25
# see http://intensecode.blogspot.de/2013/10/tutorial-vlc-with-hardware-acceleration.html
# for the original Raspbian version 
# and  http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=59814
# for more elaboration of the issue
# this version is for archlinux and not 

# install development tools
# check whether already installed
echo "starting vlc compile"
date
echo "checking that development tools are installed"
which m4
if [ $? -ne 0 ]
then
  echo "... not installed ... will do so now ..."
  sudo pacman -Sy git libtool pkg-config autoconf base-devel
else
  echo "... already installed"
fi
# check whether sources have been downloaded
if [ ! -d vlc ]
then
  echo "vlc sources not available yet ... getting them ..."
  git clone git://git.videolan.org/vlc.git
  cd vlc
else
  echo "vlc sources available - updating ..."
    cd vlc
  git pull
fi
# run the bootstrap process
./bootstrap
# install libraries
pacman -Sy libbluray libdvdread libkate libass fluidsynth libmtp libgoom2 twolame
#pacman -Sy liba52-0.7.4-dev libdirac-dev libdvdread-dev libkate-dev libass-dev libbluray-dev libcddb2-dev libdca-dev libfaad-dev libflac-dev libmad0-dev libmodplug-dev libmpcdec-dev libmpeg2-4-dev libogg-dev libopencv-dev libpostproc-dev libshout3-dev libspeex-dev libspeexdsp-dev libssh2-1-dev liblua5.1-0-dev libopus-dev libschroedinger-dev libsmbclient-dev libtwolame-dev libx264-dev libxcb-composite0-dev libxcb-randr0-dev libxcb-xv0-dev libzvbi-dev
# check missing libraries
./configure --enable-rpi-omxil
grep  "WARNING: Library" config.log | wc
grep  "WARNING: Library" config.log 
for  lib in `grep "WARNING: Library" config.log | cut -d: -f 4 | cut -d " " -f3 `
do
  pacman -Sy $lib
done
# now start make
make clean
make

Answer 5

• Try with sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https
• Then sudo apt-get update
• Finally sudo apt-get install vlc

Worked for me.

Answer 6

VLC openmax module aka omxil module is usually built along with the project. All you need to have is openmax installed, libvlc will then use it.