playing video from Pi to analogue TV

[shrunkenmaster]

New to all this Pi stuff and looking for some guidance. I have an analogue CRT TV with just a coax/aerial socket and want to play video files on it.

Could someone advise me on which model Pi is the most suitable? I know I'll require some kind of adaptor, but it seems that different models have varying outputs. Looking for the route with the least fuss.

Also, can you get the Pi to boot straight into a video player such as VLC (or similar), so that the video will play on power up?

Video quality is not an issue, as I'll be playing 4:3 aspect low def files.

[ballboff]

I'm not an expert in pi, but I do believe this is all achievable.  Firstly, your sound and video outputs shouldn't be a problem.  With the earlier pi boards you got a yellow rca video connector.  I'm certain that if your CRT TV has a scart on it, you can get a connector that goes from 3 rca plugs to scart.  You would then just need a wire that has 2 rca (red and white) to 2.5mm jack (which plugs straight into your pi). 

As for booting straight to the video player, someone else might want to chip in here.  But I'm sure there is a file on the pi called local.rc which allows you to set things like this up.  On my build I know for sure I have this file, and I've heard of people setting values in this file so that on retropie instead of booting to the menu, you can set it to boot into 1 specific game.

[shrunkenmaster]

Thanks for that ballboff. Don't have a SCART socket unfortunately, but  I can get an rca/composite to rf converter.

[nitrogen_widget]

Thanks for that ballboff. Don't have a SCART socket unfortunately, but  I can get an rca/composite to rf converter.

You will need one of those RF modulators.
since you are playing SD videos, OMX player uses hardware acceleration on all the pi models.
Except for MPEG2.
But even an RPI 1 should be able to handle SD mpeg2 in software no problem.

[matsadona]

There are solutions like this: http://www.timschwartz.org/raspberry-pi-video-looper/

Or if you want to change content on the fly (from a remote connection) this is a good alternative: https://www.screenly.io/ose/

I'm using both alternatives for an exhibition with  +10 RPi's, and the old models are good enough to play HD content.

[shrunkenmaster]

Thanks dude. I wired up a jack to the composite connector on the Pi, then through an RF modulator. Ended up using this looper:

https://learn.adafruit.com/raspberry-pi-video-looper/overview

[pbj]

"Again unless you absolutely can't avoid it, do not abruptly remove power from the Raspberry Pi without cleanly shutting it down first!"

sigh.

[matsadona]

I'm still waiting for my first SD-card crash, since I just unplug the power on a regular basis - and have been doing that for a long time.
However I do shutdown in a proper way if there is an option to do that (like in Retropie).