rpi3-player-button

Button-triggered video player for Raspberry Pi 3 using VLC and GPIO.

Plays a standby video in a loop. Pressing a button interrupts and plays the assigned video, then returns to standby.

Pinout

Button	GPIO	Video
1	GPIO 2	cobalt.mp4
2	GPIO 3	rre.mp4
3	GPIO 4	tantalum.mp4

Videos

Place videos in media/. Required files:

• standby.mp4 — loops when idle
• cobalt.mp4, rre.mp4, tantalum.mp4 — triggered by buttons

Videos must be 1080p or below. The RPi3 hardware decoder maxes out at 1920x1080.

Transcoding 4K source

4K (3840x1920) source must be scaled down. Transcode to 1920x960 to stay within limits while keeping the 2:1 aspect ratio (use scale=1280:640 if still choppy):

sudo apt install ffmpeg
for f in cobalt rre tantalum standby; do
  ffmpeg -i media/${f}.mp4 -vf scale=1920:960 \
    -c:v libx264 -profile:v main -level 4.0 -preset fast -crf 23 \
    -c:a aac media/${f}_scaled.mp4
  mv media/${f}_scaled.mp4 media/${f}.mp4
done

Setup

sudo apt install vlc libvlc-dev liblgpio-dev python3-dev swig
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Service

Installs as a systemd service that starts on boot:

sudo cp player.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl daemon-reload && sudo systemctl enable --now player