Convert Raspbian Stretch Lite to video-output

[fred44nl]

my RaspberryPi 3B is running completely headless. it has never seen a keyboard, mouse nor screen.
it boots from the SD-card and runs from the attached usb-hdd.
everything done to it, like installing software, downloading media, etc.etc. is done over SSH.
media is streamed to my TV with miniDLNA and Plex.

all goes well, until there is media that needs converting or transcoding.
what I would like to do, is install VLC or another video-player, connect the RPi with HDMI to my TV and play the convertible video directly, with the output to the TV.
this would mean, that I must convert my headless system almost completely.
can this be done ??
there is a topic about this, but it seems difficult to find.

of course it would be possible to start over, but than I would loose all the data, that I have on the usb-hdd.

[Heater]

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
$ sudo apt-get install vlc

Apt will install VLC and everything it needs to run it. No doubt including X11 and the desktop stuff. Assuming your SD card is big enough for it all.

Note: I have not actually done this on a Pi so what actually happens is a mystery. I have however done similar "upgrades" from headless to desktop Debian Linux systems a few times before with success.

Personally I would be inclined to start over with new SD card, USB stick whatever, then copy over all the data from the old headless media. Having a backup or two is always a good idea.

[fred44nl]

Assuming your SD card is big enough for it all.

I use the SD-card only to read cmdline.txt and the kernel.
the rest comes from SDA1.

Personally I would be inclined to start over with new SD card, USB stick whatever, then copy over all the data from the old headless media. Having a backup or two is always a good idea.

the amount of data is about 750GB, as the usb-hdd is 1TB

I looked what apt-get wants to add and it is going to be 110 packages

[Heater]

A mere trifle.

[W. H. Heydt]

The ease of doing what you want depends, at least in part, on what you installed in the first place. Did you sue Raspbian, or did you use Rapsbian Lite? If you used the full version, then pretty much everything you need is already there. In addition, you don't actually need to connect a monitor. You could do what you're describing over an RDP link from another system.

[fred44nl]

started out with Raspbian Jessie Light.
on there, I installed the required software, like Sabnzbd+, Deluge, miniDLNA and Plexmediaserver.
sometime ago, I upgrade the system to Stretch, still being Lite.

to-day I followed viewtopic.php?t=133691 which gives me a desktop, which I can reach with VNC.

does this mean I also HDMI output ??

[W. H. Heydt]

started out with Raspbian Jessie Light.
on there, I installed the required software, like Sabnzbd+, Deluge, miniDLNA and Plexmediaserver.
sometime ago, I upgrade the system to Stretch, still being Lite.

to-day I followed viewtopic.php?t=133691 which gives me a desktop, which I can reach with VNC.

does this mean I also HDMI output ??

VNC just echoes the existing desktop to a remote system, so yes (so far as I know) if you hook up a monitor, you'll have output. Caveat...you may need to reboot after connecting the monitor unless you've specified "force_hdmi" in /boot/config.txt. (That last is, I suspect, rather unlikely given your initial setup.)

[fred44nl]

hooked it up to my TV, booted the RPi with a HDMI-cable connected.
to my surprise my TV switched on all by itself and showed a black screen with Raspbian booting. after a while the screen went black, which is probably a screen-saver.
so far so good, but it is not the same screen when I make a connection with VNC.

so, how do I get my user-screen through HDMI on my TV ??

[pksato]

Hi fred44nl,
You not need a video output to transncode or convert a video or audio formats.
VLC, mencoder, ffmpeg, etc can do it via command line.
Or use a DLNA capable of transcoding. Like this https://bitbucket.org/stativ/readymedia-transcode .
Trascoding on RPI can be very slow, if software not support GPU decoding and encoding or codec not supported by GPU.

To use command line converting tool you need to know the parameter of final encoding format.

[fred44nl]

so, how do I get my user-screen through HDMI on my TV ??

so, I did Raspi-Config and changed the boot option to boot into the Desktop under my user-name. and after rebooting I got my desktop showing on the TV.
however, I can not control that desktop through RDP.

what's the next step here ??

[Man in a van]

Hi Fred, you can go to raspi-config and install VNC , enable it and then put the free viewer on your Windows computer

https://www.realvnc.com/en/connect/download/viewer/

I have done much the same as yourself from a Stretch-Lite install.

I used the Chromium Browser in the desktop and a few other bits and bobs

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y dist-upgrade
sudo apt -y install raspberrypi-ui-mods
sudo apt -y install chromium-browser
#install VNC Server from sudo raspi-config
#add SD Card Copier
sudo apt update
sudo apt -y full-upgrade
sudo apt -y install piclone 

Hope this is helpful

groetjes

Ronnie

[ghans]

There are VNC servers which create virtual desktops and there are VNC servers which control
the real desktop visible on the video output.

RealVNC belongs to the latter category, it is what you want.

ghans

[fred44nl]

RealVNC belongs to the latter category, it is what you want.

ok, installed RealVNC on both ends, i.e. server and viewer.
changed the boot-options, so the RPi boots with my account into the Desktop.
and I got that on my TV. so far so good.
in order to play video's, I have VLC installed.
strangely enough, VLC opens and works when I use RDP, but not with RealVNC.
so, I removed it and reinstalled it.
without succes.

how do I get VLC working, or should I take another video-player ??

[fred44nl]

it has been a useful lesson and I am grateful for the support here

however, what is comes down to is: the limited performance of a RaspberryPI.
we all know this and we are trying to get more out if it, than there is available.
I was trying to stream a video-file that needed transcoding.
the RPi went to 400% cpu and the video did not run.
next I tried to play the video with my Macbook Air 2011 - 1.8 GHz Sandy Bridge, using a HDMI cable from the laptop to the TV.
the video played correctly, but the temperature of the Macbook Air was over 90 degr.C
finally I did the same with my Macbook Pro 2017 - 2.3 GHz Kaby Lake.
no problem, what so ever.

in other words: I will have to look for a more powerfull server