Sorry to keep banging on about this, but it comes up so often. I’ve always been really clear but people just don’t seem to understand the fundamental realities of the original RPi hardware.
I can never conceive of a fully featured client that will run on a RPi. There is just not enough processing power there for us. Sure the old Python client can be made to run but with significant limitations. If you are able to work around those then that’s great, but the project aren’t going to push a solution where only 50% of the functionality works.
The RPi 2 has a bit more poke and should be capable of running Android, so when/if Android is released for RPi 2 then Xibo for Android should run there (we’ve not tested that so don’t take that as an indication of likely performance or official support).
It’s fabulous that @ricardogil is willing to offer his help to those looking to get the old client running subject to those limitations and I wholeheartedly thank him for putting forward his time.
You are certainly right that animation support is lacking in the windows player and even in Xibo in general (although Xibo for Android does support transitions, as did the Python Client). We have moved forward a bit with the new effects in text/tickers - but fundamentally we need to support animation between regions and layouts. The block for that is a better CMS UI for transitions and importantly a rewritten windows player.
Things like your template really help up improve the visual appeal of Xibo in the short term, meanwhile we are working on the above in the longer term.
I believe the RPi does have some ability to render OpenGL. Does Kivy have support for rendering HTML5 in a transparent container (ie can I show a video in a browser with a transparent background), and can I show multiple hardware accelerated videos simultaneously with content overlaying the video? It’s things like that that we need to move forwards.
Last time I’ve played with Kivy it had video played container/controller, but no html5 rendering engine. I’m not a Python developer but what was very interesting about Kivy, was it’s performance.
@alex Sorry, I’m pretty new to Xibo, so I missed your opinion on Raspberry Pi. Ofcourse I meant the RPi2-B.
@dan I’m still surprised that the “interactive” touch gets more priority than animation support, which a lot more people probably gonna need. But then again, it’s probably a business decision.
For a better CMS UI for transitions/animations/etc take a look at Adobe Edge/After Effects/Premiere (effects). That seems to work well (not only for Adobe, but also for designers and ‘normal’ customers).
@MedusaDelft this thread is about support for the original RPi hence my comments. If we could keep discussion about future development in the other thread that would be really helpful
Well, I’d say the new player has more priority than interactive signage - so in a way animation does have more priority perhaps you could open a feature topic about what you want to see animation wise? We can then dig in
One thing that I did and is working very well is to call local pages, running in a local Apache.
So for instance, my product has what I call Youplugy.com.br news. So like any other signage solution, I wanted to present the last news from RSS, but also you want something fancy, with some specific layout for Economy, sports, etc.
So I installed a local Apache (could be within the same network, but for now Im using local) and in the Xibo I added to my layout a page, something like: http://localhost/page.html
And I have a daemon application running on Rasp, that from time to time, once a day, whatever, connects to my source and create LOCAL .html pages, and also a script that use some random logic to create the page.html with different content every X minutes…
That way inside the Xibo layout, my loop has some contents coming from Xibo but others that are html5 pages, with supports for some CSS Transitions and I can present my news and other dynamic content.
I kinda found a way to use Xibo to support that idea and it is working very well.
Few days ago, I installed Ubuntu 12.0.4 in my vmware and did some tests regarding how the network impacts Xibo python client.
For those who dont know, in the vmware you can set the % of failed network packages into a specific vm.
Basically I proved that in some situations, when Xibo client is able to connect to CMS, than you change a layout in an environment with network slowness or packets error, Xibo client can hung, I mean, It continue working, but it will never update the layout, or in some situations it will create 0 size files when GetFile fails.
So one of the workarounds I did, is changing the file Xibo/plugins/media/ImageMedia.py , removing the creating of thumb (reducing file to 0.95% of its size would not matter here).
In parallel I will continue debugging code to find out how Xibo client can “refresh” and try again like it does during start up process, so it will re-download files or refresh layouts after a problem with network.
Actually if you consider raspberry with a small wifi dongle, this is a situation that may happen. It does not applies to cable network connections…
Disabling the thumbnailing can be done with a configuration option (from memory) but then you will almost certainly crash it as soon as you load in an image which requires more video ram than your device has available. That’s why the client always resamples to ensure that doesn’t happen.
I really want to try Xibo on Raspberry Pi, but the need for this is right now. I already buy the latest Pi (Raspberry Pi 2 Model B) but i can’t wait some months until gettin’ It into production, so my first question is -in order to get it working today- about the hardware, what do i have to buy, speaking “Xibo on Raspberry Pi” (with 2015/today’s working-hardware)?
Please, insert a buy-List so i’ll buy those at once:
Hardware
Raspberry Pi + case - Model?
SD-Card - Model, Capacity?
Charger - Model?
Something else?
Hey Rodrigo,
you can go to http://rpiserver.breggen.nl/ and download initial images for your pi. They were created by one of the raspberry forum masters, Hellbender… the guy is awesome…
anyway, besides it I would go to 8gb SD card (any model but with the fastest class would be better)
Charger = any source with micro usb connector that can give to the pi at least 0.8 to 1Amp
Also an hdmi cable or composite to connect it to monitors. I would go for that.
Hi Didi, i did actually install Balmonds image, i have not problem with the actualisations of the clients but i have some serious problems right now with The Xibo Client stopping showing the layouts after a while . . . sometimes even at login the layouts don’t play and some other times it plays for a long time but then -after some hours- the Xibo player stops showing the layouts (maybe libavg problem?). My other problem is that i can’t see the Xibo layout showing at VNC, i can access the RPI with VNC at the same session/desktop showing via the LCD screen (settings “:0” at x11vncserver), but the layer with the Xibo player shows just as a black picture (this black picture shows via VNC even when the Xibo layout stopped showing the contents, so I can not know via the VNC if the layouts are actually showing or not), so, it doesn’t show the Xibo layout via VNC. I want to keep testing Xibo with RPI, but i must postpone the idea to put it into production this month. I am thinking workaround it with some Xibo Offline client or something like that …
I am hopping right now for some serious hack /debug (anyone?) giving us some more stable result with the XiboClient.py because is gonna happend, the question is when? I’m keeping testing, so long!
VNC won’t show the screen because libavg is effectively a video overlay rendering direct to graphics card memory so screen scrapers can’t see the output.
The Python client isn’t going to be fixed because the libraries it uses where the majority of the issues come from aren’t being developed any more and it’s too much work to take those projects on as well.
Hi Alex, thank you for your reply. Can you please confirm then if Xibo for Raspberry Pi is working now, 2015, without problems, for most users? I mean, those problems with the Xibo Client stopping suddenly showing the layouts, is it something happening for some users or for most users using XiboClient.py at the Raspberry Pi, right now?
@Rodrigo No it isn’t. It’s not supported. It’s not powerful enough. It’s an awful choice of hardware and as far as I’m concerned will never ever be supported. I have been crystal clear on this from day one.
Others have built images claiming support but they all barely work, and are buggy. Don’t use them unless you are willing to deal with that yourself.
Also the Linux client is unsupported and undeveloped. Please see the notice on the Xibo website that explains the reasons behind that.
perhaps you could open a feature topic about what you want to see animation wise? We can then dig in