68

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.

2
  • 1
    Afaik, VLC has a openMax module so it should have the same capabilities as the OMXPlayer.
    – user1542
    Sep 19, 2012 at 15:19
  • 3
    There is now a hardware accelerated version of VLC raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/3399/…
    – puk
    Oct 29, 2013 at 16:10

6 Answers 6

43

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.

8
  • Any idea whether this build has hardware support? Jun 25, 2012 at 12:45
  • 2
    @AlexChamberlain: I would doubt it.
    – Jivings
    Jun 25, 2012 at 12:54
  • I thought about that and extended my answer, thanks.
    – Bengt
    Jun 25, 2012 at 12:57
  • 1
    I actually ended up doing it, I have to test different videos to see how smooth it looks like. It seems like VLC 2.0 will have support for the same type of graphic engine that is inside the Broadcom chip and they may detect GPU and use some of it's abilities when 2.0 is officially released.
    – FarhadA
    Jun 25, 2012 at 13:56
  • 1
    Just a tip: rather than using a boolean AND (" && "), you can use just "; " It's 2 characters rather than 4, and doesn't require holding shift
    – Alexander
    Sep 20, 2012 at 0:58
19

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).

9
  • 3
    I can confirm this, I installed VLC on the vanilla debian squeeze and it ran like a dog, the media player that comes with XBMC OpenElec version does support HW accelerated playback and played 1080p mp4 smoothly with no lag or dropped frames
    – EdChum
    Jun 25, 2012 at 9:02
  • So it means that the VLC has the support for the GPU then? I have to get it from there and install it. I am interested in the streaming capabilities of the VLC to make RasPi a simple media player.
    – FarhadA
    Jun 25, 2012 at 9:03
  • 2
    Downvoter, please explain.
    – Jivings
    Jun 25, 2012 at 9:42
  • @FarhadA: What's wrong with using OMXPlayer?
    – Jivings
    Jun 25, 2012 at 9:52
  • Nothing wrong with it, it is just that I am used to VLC and would rather have that in my RasPi, that's all.
    – FarhadA
    Jun 25, 2012 at 11:01
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

2

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:

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
1
  • Try with sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https
  • Then sudo apt-get update
  • Finally sudo apt-get install vlc

Worked for me.

0

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.

3
  • 5
    Hi Kevin. You really need a bit more detail here. A better answer would demonstrate how to install openmax.
    – Jivings
    Sep 21, 2012 at 14:10
  • 1
    Can anyone elaborate on this answer? I'd love to get vlc working on my pi. If it's as simple as installing something I'd like to know what to install. Jan 14, 2013 at 6:44
  • @KurtisNusbaum I too would like to know this as I find OMXPlayer to be severely lacking in many departments
    – puk
    Oct 18, 2013 at 4:32

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