How to play video over host hdmi?

Configuration
1

hi, i run home assistant inside docker at a raspberry. i would like let home assistant play video media on my tv. raspberry and tv are already connected via hdmi. my idea was to run a media player inside weston cage on the host and control it with home assistant over an api. i thought of vlc. but the home assistant integration do only support audio. are some other software i can use? i would like to avoid running something big like kodi.

2

The HDMI port is used for outputting the console output, so you would need a virtualization software, like a hypervisor, on the Pi to separate HA from the HDMI port.
Docker is a virtualization app, so maybe it can separate the HDMI output from HA.

3

i can configure a user with auto login and put weston cage at the auto start for this user.
like a kiosk system. So this should no be an issue

4

Then maybe a VLC client with the telnet feature enabled.

5

it already try it out, but as soon i enable telnet i get no window anymore.

6

nevermind i try it out again. if i use vlc --extraintf telnet --telnet-password test instead of vlc --I telnet --telnet-password test i get a window again.

thanks i will test it with ha later

7

i have do the following now on a rasberry 2, which run headless alpine linux:

  • create a new user cage
  • install needed software apk add agetty alsa-utils alsaconf cage mesa-dri-gallium seatd vlc
  • add seated to auto start rc-update add seatd (see Seatd - Installation)
  • add cage user to needed groups:
adduser cage seat
adduser cage audio
adduser cage video

# Enable Audio
dtparam=audio=on

# Enable DRM VC4 V3D driver
dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d
max_framebuffers=2
gpu_mem=256

# Don't have the firmware create an initial video= setting in cmdline.txt.
# Use the kernel's default instead.
disable_fw_kms_setup=1
  • enable autologin:
    edit line tty1::respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1 to tty1::respawn:/sbin/agetty --autologin cage tty1 linux at file /etc/inittab (see TTY Autologin - By using agetty)
  • edit start “shell” of cage user to start a custom script instead:
    edit line cage:x:1001:1001:cage:/home/cage:/bin/bash to cage:x:1001:1001:cage:/home/cage:/usr/local/bin/start_cage_vlc.sh at file /etc/passwd.
  • create the script:
#!/bin/sh

#set up to XDG_RUNTIME_DIR enviroment variable (needed for wayland)
#see: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Wayland#Configuring_XDG_RUNTIME_DIR_manually
if [ -z "$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR" ]; then
	XDG_RUNTIME_DIR="/tmp/$(id -u)-runtime-dir"

	mkdir -pm 0700 "$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR"
	export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
fi

#start vlc inside cage
#i am to lazy to setup pulesaudio/pipewire, so vlc have to use alsa directly
WLR_LIBINPUT_NO_DEVICES=1 cage -d -s -- vlc -A alsa --extraintf telnet --telnet-password test --no-video-title-show --fullscreen 2>&1 | tee /tmp/vlc.log

#wait some time, so I can read the error messages
sleep 20s

if the script terminate, it will be automatically started again

Hints:

  • if you use diskless mode do not forget to save changes with lbu_commit -d
  • my raspberry 2 has big performance issues with videos with greater resolution as 1080p. I also looks like mp4 works better like webm, but this need further tests. so high resolution videos maybe not work