Mmmm pi

Tom

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I have a Raspberry Pi 4 that I bought to do Telraam in my street but it turns out that they only support a Pi 3a. Which sucks. So I was thinking, maybe I could use this Pi 4 as a media server. I'd like to do something like have it plugged in behind the TV, connected to my router (and TV), with a load of media files on the SD card that I could play on my TV.

Now my TV is a 2013-ish plasma, a decent Panasonic, but obviously dated software. Can I use something like Kodi (never used it before) on the Pi, turn the telly on, select the HDMI input, and use the TV remote to select and play stuff?

I would also like that SD card to appear on my windows desktop as a folder, or a drive, so I can drag and drop files from my torrents folder. And actually it'd be quite cool if I could access that remotely too, from a hotel room or something, on my iPad.
 

caLLous

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You won't be able to use the TV to control stuff on the Pi, as it's an input device for the TV, not the Pi. That said, there are loads of options nowadays. One is pick up a USB IR sensor to plug into the Pi which would enable you to use a "one for all" type remote with it.

I have an old Intel NUC which happens to have an IR sensor built in and I have a Logitech (Harmony 350 iirc) remote. I've not looked into using it to actually control the PC but the media buttons on it work fine for controlling already-playing video (and the volume buttons work too).

Another option is to do it all over the network - you can install VLC on the Pi and then an app on your phone called VLC Mobile Remote which lets you control pretty much every aspect of the computer VLC is on (as long as both devices are on the same network). You can use your phone like a trackpad to move the cursor, type on a keyboard on your phone, open VLC from your phone and add files to the playlist and control every aspect of playback like fullscreen, skipping forward, going to the next file in the playlist, toggling/choosing subtitles etc.

All you'd have to do with the second option is use the TV remote to switch the source over to the Pi. I'm sure there are more streamlined solutions but the VLC one works well for my needs.

As for having a shortcut to the folder, it'd be easy enough to share a directory on the SD card over the network and connect to it from the PC (with a desktop shortcut). And I know Plex (an alternative, more polished version of Kodi) allows you to set up a media server that you can dial into from anywhere (if you're willing to pay them).

Edit - I was looking for a link to that Logitech remote but it turns out they stopped making the entire range last year.
 
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MYstIC G

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I am trying to do this:


But I've gotten this error message when I run the script:

View attachment 46412

I'm no Mr Robot, can anyone tell me what I've done wrong?
File has downloaded as HTML. Download it from here instead then run the commands

 

Tom

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Cheers, will try that thanks
 

Tom

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Cheers it's doing something now. Supposed to take a few hours.

PXL_20220705_160142133.jpg
 

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