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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.

FarhadA
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    Afaik, VLC has a openMax module so it should have the same capabilities as the OMXPlayer. –  Sep 19 '12 at 15:19
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    There is now a hardware accelerated version of VLC http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/3399/vlc-hardware-acceleration – puk Oct 29 '13 at 16:10

6 Answers6

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.

Bengt
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  • Any idea whether this build has hardware support? – Alex Chamberlain Jun 25 '12 at 12:45
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    @AlexChamberlain: I would doubt it. – Jivings Jun 25 '12 at 12:54
  • I thought about that and extended my answer, thanks. – Bengt Jun 25 '12 at 12:57
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    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 '12 at 13:56
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    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 '12 at 00:58
  • Actually, on a german keyboard like mine, ";" requires shift. Also it was only for illustration purposes, but I will update for micro improvements anyway. – Bengt Sep 20 '12 at 09:04
  • @XAleXOwnZX The original "&&" version was better; it wouldn't run the second command if the first failed. – Alex Chamberlain Sep 23 '12 at 07:07
  • True, but is that what we want? I think its OK to try and install with outdated package lists. In turn: Do we need to have updated package lists, or could we just assume that and drop the update all together? – Bengt Sep 23 '12 at 11:37
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).

Community
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Jivings
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    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 '12 at 09:02
  • 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 '12 at 09:03
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    Downvoter, please explain. – Jivings Jun 25 '12 at 09:42
  • @FarhadA: What's wrong with using OMXPlayer? – Jivings Jun 25 '12 at 09:52
  • 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 '12 at 11:01
  • @Jivings a lot is wrong with OMXPlayer, it doesn't support synchronizations for one, and, to the best of my knowledge, it does not support visualizations. – puk Oct 18 '13 at 04:31
  • @puk Is VLC hardware accelerated yet? – Jivings Oct 18 '13 at 07:57
  • @Jivings do you mean VLC? If so, I think it is still not hardware accelerated yet. – puk Oct 18 '13 at 09:02
  • @puk Yes I did thanks. Until it is I'll stick with OMXPlayer :) – Jivings Oct 18 '13 at 10:03
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

Helder AC
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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
Wolfgang Fahl
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  • Try with sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https
  • Then sudo apt-get update
  • Finally sudo apt-get install vlc

Worked for me.

Jacobm001
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mangoo
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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.

hifkanotiks
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Kevin B
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    Hi Kevin. You really need a bit more detail here. A better answer would demonstrate how to install openmax. – Jivings Sep 21 '12 at 14:10
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    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. – Kurtis Nusbaum Jan 14 '13 at 06:44
  • @KurtisNusbaum I too would like to know this as I find OMXPlayer to be severely lacking in many departments – puk Oct 18 '13 at 04:32