raspberry-pi-dvd-player

Use a Raspberry Pi as a DVD player

Features:

• Automatically play a DVD as soon as it is inserted
• Skips trailers, etc. by default
• Entirely console and framebuffer based playback (i.e. no X11/Wayland) so very low power and quick to boot
• Use any existing IR remote to play/pause/rewind/forward
• Turns screen on automatically when a DVD is inserted
• DVD splash screen
• Silent boot

DVD Player Setup

You will need:

• A micro SD card
• A Raspberry Pi (I've tested on a Pi Zero and Pi Zero W)
• A USB DVD drive

1. Install Rasbian Lite on the micro SD card

2. Purchase a MPEG2 license from here. You will need the serial number from your Raspberry Pi which can be found by running cat /proc/cpuinfo.

3. Add the serial number to /boot/config.txt. You will receive an email telling you what to add.

4. Install VLC:

sudo apt-get install -y vlc

5. Copy dvd-play.service to /etc/systemd/system/.

6. Add a udev rules to start/stop this service when a DVD is inserted/ejected by copying 90-dvd.rules to /etc/udev/rules.d/.

Remote control setup

You will need:

• Flirc USB dongle connected to the Raspberry Pi

1. Install Flirc

curl apt.flirc.tv/install.sh | sudo bash 

2. Assign the keys on your remote to regular keys. Do not use the play/pause, fastforward, etc. commands.

flirc_util record p # Press play/pause
flirc_util record r # Press rewind
flirc_util record f # Press fast forward
flirc_util record s # Press stop

3. Install Python dependencies:

sudo apt-get install -y python3-pip
pip3 install evdev

4. Copy vlc_media_buttons.py to /home/pi.

5. Copy dvd-remote.service to /etc/systemd/system/.

6. Enable the service:

sudo systemctl enable dvd-remote 

Automatically turn on the screen when a DVD is inserted

(HDMI-CEC compatible screen only.)

1. To prevent the screen turning on when the Pi boots, add the following to /boot/config.txt:

hdmi_ignore_cec_init=1

2. Install cec-utils:

sudo apt-get install -y cec-utils

3. Copy turn-on-screen.service to /etc/systemd/system/.

DVD background and quiet boot

1. Copy dvd.jpg to /usr/share/backgrounds/. You may need to create the directory.

2. Install fim:

sudo apt-get install -y fim

3. Copy dvd-background.service to /etc/systemd/system/.

4. Enable the service:

sudo systemctl enable dvd-background

5. To show a blank screen when booting the following to the first line of /boot/cmdline.txt:

loglevel=3 quiet logo.nologo vt.global_cursor_default=0

6. To hide boot output while the Raspberry Pi boots change console=tty1 to console=tty3 in /boot/cmdline.txt.