piCorePlayer Documentation

[Paul Webster]

If it does not work with a recent Raspberry Pi OS (I tested with 2022-09-22-raspios-bullseye-armhf ) then it is almost certainly not going to work with pCP.

If using raspios then the only thing you have to do is
sudo cec-ctl --playback
because it defaults to using kms and the tooling is already installed.

[Greg Erskine]

Mainly pCP 8.1.0

The problem I have is I have never had CEC work, and there are so many variables.

Maybe my TV doesn't work properly, maybe the cable is sub standard??

And RPT have been playing around with HDMI since the release of the RPi4B, so each kernel version is probably different.

I started with a RPi0W but have changed to a RPi1B (with USB wifi) to reduce one variable.

[Paul Webster]

Were you trying on 8.1 ?

[Greg Erskine]

hi Paul,

Thanks for doing this.

I am trying but having no luck, so nothing to report.

regards
Greg

[Paul Webster]

8.1 works

Minimum steps to reproduce

Fresh SD card and put pCP 8.1 on it
Edit config.txt
gpu_mem=80 # For RPi1 not sure if needed for others

dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d

No need to comment out dtparam=audio=on ... which brings bonus that "headphone" device will still exist and, I presume, be available for Squeezelite (along with HDMI via iec958:CARD=vc4hdmi,DEV=0 )

Extensions - add v4l2-utils.tcz (to get the CEC controls)
(no need to resize SD card in this minimum setup - but you will have to if you later install Jivelite).

pcp br

sudo cec-ctl --playback (ultimately ... put it in Tweaks as a startup option but without "sudo " at the front)

sudo cec-ctl --monitor

use TV remote arrow keys and you should see
Received from TV to Playback Device 1 (0 to 4): POLL
Received from TV to Playback Device 1 (0 to 4): USER_CONTROL_PRESSED (0x44):
ui-cmd: right (0x04)
Received from TV to Playback Device 1 (0 to 4): USER_CONTROL_RELEASED (0x45)
Received from TV to Playback Device 1 (0 to 4): USER_CONTROL_PRESSED (0x44):
ui-cmd: down (0x02)
Received from TV to Playback Device 1 (0 to 4): USER_CONTROL_RELEASED (0x45)
Received from TV to Playback Device 1 (0 to 4): USER_CONTROL_PRESSED (0x44):
ui-cmd: up (0x01)
Received from TV to Playback Device 1 (0 to 4): USER_CONTROL_RELEASED (0x45)
Received from TV to Playback Device 1 (0 to 4): USER_CONTROL_PRESSED (0x44):
ui-cmd: left (0x03)
Received from TV to Playback Device 1 (0 to 4): USER_CONTROL_RELEASED (0x45)
Received from TV to Playback Device 1 (0 to 4): POLL

You should also see that "up" does command line history recall if you have the RPi console visible on TV.
If you had installed Jivelite and had it visible then you should be able to move through the menus (do not use Grid screen because no way to do equivalent of click / brightness).

[Paul Webster]

... I went back to pCP 8.1 and it didn't work ... then back to 8.0 and it didn't work ...
so just before I tried 8.0b3 (where I am pretty sure I had it working) I tried one more thing ...

I now have 8.0 with TV remote working.

Trick was to give explicit amount of gpu_mem in config.txt
I had been commenting it out which I thought would default to 64 on RPi1 but seems like that is not enough.
So I put
gpu_mem=80
in config.txt along with the dtoverlay for kms plus adding the v4l2-utils extension and the cec-ctl --playback in the Tweaks for startup.

The cursor keys work - which is enough to do basic things in non-grid skin.

Would be great if someone in pCP team can repeat this success.

I tried to repeat with 8.2 and it did not work ... HDMI via KMS working fine ... but CEC commands not seen on the way in.

sudo cec-ctl --monitor
does not show the IR commands coming in.


Will try again with 8.1 to try to work out when the retrograde step happened.

[Paul Webster]

For a reason that ai have not yet worked out, I am not able to get kms working with pCP 8.2 on my spare RPi 1.

However, try this on a pCP system that has kms + HDMI working:
Install extension v4l-utils
Then put this in startup tweaks

cec-ctl —playback
(MinusMinus)
and reboot

You should get a multi-line console message when booting showing that it found the CEC device

That might be enough for it to work (it is on latest Raspberry Pi OS).

If it does not work … try from command line:
sudo cec-ctl —monitor
and press a few keys on TV remote to see if anything gets printed on terminal

[Paul Webster]

It does work with pCP 8

I'll build another one and see if the steps work for me.

[Greg Erskine]

I did read through your thread(s) but... I understood you got CEC working for Raspberry Pi OS but not with pCP.

I did follow through with your instructions (no compiling) but didn't get CEC working.

[Paul Webster]

Next step is to add in the CEC control capability so that you can use the TV remote to drive Jivelite.

https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?113784-Getting-HDMI-CEC-to-work-on-pCP-7-0&p=1007236&viewfull=1#post1007236

[Greg Erskine]

Added a project "Raspberry Pi Zero W with HDMI TV and Jivelite" to piCorePlayer documentation.

Yikes, HDMI setup has gotten a whole lot more complicated.

In the old days, I would create a SD card, set output to "HDMI output", press Random. Don't worry about jivelite, it always worked. Testing over.

Not any more....lots of gotcha's.

[Greg Erskine]

Added "Tags" and "Categories" Taxonomy links to the top right hand menu.

Taxonomy has always part of the documentation, but up to now, there was no method of starting at the Taxonomy top level. Previous you had to open a page, then click on the Tag or Category link.

[Greg Erskine]

Test post

[Greg Erskine]

Added a new "How to" to the piCorePlayer Documentation.

See "Add a WD Elements SE 4 TB hard disk drive".

The object of this “How To” was to grab a standard 4TB USB HDD from the Electronics store and determine what are the steps required to get it mounted on piCorePlayer. To date, I have only be using 1TB and 2TB USB drives which were formatted NTFS and used a MBR. My understanding is for HDD’s greater than 2TB, the MBR is replaced with a GPT. piCorePlayer being a minimalist distribution doesn’t include support for NTFS or GPT by default.

There is no directory creation, file copy or LMS setup instructions, just instructions to mount a NTFS formatted USB drive with a GPT.

[captain_tinker]

Ok, I think I tried that, but didn't work. Will try again. Now that I know it should work, I'm sure I can figure it out, thanks!

- I guess I just wasn't patient enough, that worked. Thanks again!