Raspberry Pi Forums

Hello you all, this is my first post and first Pi! Just got a Pi2 and have messed with Arduinos before but never Pi.

I am using Pi on a leftover TV to create a little computer system for my kids in a play room. I'd like it to be mostly an OS like Raspbian to run software on, but would also like to play .mp4s or other videos for the kids from time to time.

I know that you have OSs like RaspBMC and Openelec to act as media centers, but is there a way to play videos on an OS that acts more like an OS ... like Raspbian?

I've seen people use command line to call a player and play specific files from there, but I'd like to have a way for the kids to maybe doubleclick videos from a folder? Is there a best OS for this purpose?

Thanks for any help or advice!

You can play videos with Raspbian using omxplayer.

You don't need the command line to use omxplayer, you can set omxplayer as the default for .mp4, .h264, .mpg, etc, files so that just double clicking on the file in file manager will run it. To play .mpg files you will have to purchase a codec license from the RPi Foundation, it's just a few dollars.

Thanks!