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by Philipp Rüegg
A berry good movie: Raspberry Pi 4 and Kodi
24.7.2019
Translation: Patrik Stainbrook
The new Raspberry Pi 4 is bringing more power and should be able to play UHD movies at up to 60 FPS. Sounds like a long-awaited dream come true to me. I'm here to show you the many wonderful things this little berry can do.
The lack of support doesn't prevent me from successfully setting up a Raspberry Pi 4 as a media player. LibreELEC makes it possible, currently being the only distribution that conjures up a working Kodi for your little fruit without a lot of effort.
The right hardware
There's still no case, but at least I got my new calculator in the meantime.
Fresh from the box, it has these technical details:
Since the new Raspberry Pi 4 has micro HDMI connections and requires a USB-C charging cable, I've carefully selected the accessories. Especially since the power connection can cause problems when using the wrong cable – more information is available here (article in German).
If you want to make the most of your new berry in terms of resolution, you should make sure to use an HDMI cable with version 2.0. I use an old Logitech living room keyboard (K400) for the controls.
Trying out Raspbian: can this thing really run UHD resolution and 60 Hz?
The past has shown that a manufacturer can claim many things and even print them on their packaging. I recently tested the 800 franc microcomputer «Ockel Sirius A Pro» (article in German). According to the product description, it can operate UHD. However, reality revealed that the manufacturer was simply lying.
I therefore test out Raspi 4 with officially licensed software. You get the Debian-based operating system Raspbian with a variety of pre-installed software for office, programming, education and more.
Setting the system up is quick and follows these steps:
I start up Raspi for the first time and am pleased: my TV clearly shows me that the resolution is UHD at 60 Hz. Great, it works. And thanks to pre-installed programs such as LibreOffice, I could even be productive right now.
However, you should take some time with Raspbian to make some adjustments. If you're using this 4K handicraft computer, you'll need binoculars if you don't adjust the font size. What's cool is that Raspbian guides you through some important settings during your first time.
Another fun feature: with more than one Micro SD card, you can have different images ready for different uses. Then you can switch from a gaming Raspi (Retropy) to your media centre or the office version of Raspbian in no time at all.
If you want to use your micro SD card again for other purposes at some point, you can't just format it. When an image is written, various partitions are created. This is also the reason why you get more than one drive when you insert the card. If you want to undo this (on Windows), you can start the command prompt with administration rights and proceed as follows (German version, but has the same layout in English):
Start DiskPart with the command «diskpart», find the Micro SD card with «list disk», select it with «select disk X» and confirm the clean-up with «clean».
Kodi, the jack-of-all-trades of media centres
*With LibreELEC version 9.2 ALPHA1, which is in early development, 60 Hz is already possible today. But alpha versions aren't accessible to everyone and aren't very reliable.After start-up, my TV confirms that UHD resolution is now available at 30 Hz. Since I have a Plex server for all of my media at the ready, I install the appropriate add-on first. If you also want to have a Plex server, you can read more about them in the following article (in German).
If I didn't have my own server, I'd have to integrate the corresponding sources directly into Kodi and thus build up a media database. If you need help with this, I recommend the instructions in the Kodi-Wiki and on the Kodi-Forum.
I start the Plex add-on and am happy about my media database, which appears nicely sorted on the Raspberry. Now it's time to see if this fruit can really deliver when it comes to movies. I'm about to throw in the towel or cry out in happiness. First I try some movies in 1080p with H.264 conversion (MPEG-4 AVC). No problem, the GPU takes over the decoding and conjures flawless films onto the screen. But what about UHD resolution and H.265 conversion (HEVC)?
The 4K version of Alien averages at about 53.8 Mbps. So about 7 MB per second. No problem for this tiny trooper. Image and sound do what they're supposed to do.
Since Alien doesn't contain too many fast scenes and therefore offers leisurely bandwidths compared to other movies, I test extensively and for a long time. The Matrix is very well suited for this task. After about 30 seconds, when the green title card appears, the traffic already rises to 15 MB for the first time, which corresponds to 120 Mbps.
And here, too, the tiny green wonder box doesn't disappoint and conjures up the finest cinema experience. Ingenious considering the low price – I'm very happy give a cheer!
A fitting conclusion
These cheap things can certainly be used for movies. Buy one!
If I hadn't already found solutions for 4K streaming, I'd immediately cobble together a berry for continuous use. But thanks to Plex apps for the Smart TV and PS4 Pro, there is now an excess of UHD media players.
However, I already have other plans in which the Raspi will serve me faithfully in the future. I'm really looking forward to the day when RetroPie is available for the small craft calculator. If you want to know my opinions on emulating old Nintendo games, please click the blue «Follow Author» button below.
Martin Jud
Senior Editor
martin.jud@digitecgalaxus.chI find my muse in everything. When I don’t, I draw inspiration from daydreaming. After all, if you dream, you don’t sleep through life.
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