Hey guys, I want to build a Raspberry Pi media player, inside Mac classic case, for my workshop. Since I'm new to everything related to audio equipment any help and recommendation is appreciated.
I am quite new to this game.
The question you have asked has about a million ootions/answers.
I started off with a pi zero, a DAC hat that cost less than a tenner and an old amp I had.
Do a YouTube search for a channel called
Gabster
He is doing a little series about his exploits which will give you an idea of the other end of the scale.
You will be somewhere in between.
It can be simple or confusing, depending how far you want to go.
Which is part of the fun.
You choose.
The question you have asked has about a million ootions/answers.
I started off with a pi zero, a DAC hat that cost less than a tenner and an old amp I had.
Do a YouTube search for a channel called
Gabster
He is doing a little series about his exploits which will give you an idea of the other end of the scale.
You will be somewhere in between.
It can be simple or confusing, depending how far you want to go.
Which is part of the fun.
You choose.
You might be better off with an old tablet (Android or Apple). I was able to stuff a 128 GB uSD card into a $25 (thrift store) Acer tablet, and even get S/PDIF output using an OTG cable and USB sound interface. Although audio output from the headphone jack is probably perfectly fine. An Amazon Fire tablet could make a nice media player too. You'll pay a lot more just for a compatible touch screen for a Pi.
I have no touchscreen on my Pi file server. In fact, I have no screen at all! It operates "headless" on our home network. I can browse to our music or media collection from any other PC connected to our home network, and view / play any file there.
There are media-player oriented operating systems (Linux distributions) for the Pi that make it even simpler. I didn't go that route.
-Gnobuddy
I've used "volumio" on a Pi4 and it was "okay".
It didn't support streaming by bluetooth out of the box and I failed to get it working despite quite a lot hacking. I couldn't get UNPN/DNLA working either.
This left me using AirPlay (1). The problem with AirPlay 1, rather than the current AirPlay 2, is that there is a 2second lag on all media, which means seeking through media is near impossible - especially video. It's "fine" if you want to put something on and just let it play uninterrupted.
I've repurposed that Pi4 now but do want to build up another but trying to get hold of pi4 is near impossible right now. But when I do I'll be trying out HifiBerry OS. I think one issue is a lot of these software stacks are trying to be media centres with spotify et al integration. Whereas I want to stream from my phone, laptop or computer and have it play over my hifi without Jacking-in.
It didn't support streaming by bluetooth out of the box and I failed to get it working despite quite a lot hacking. I couldn't get UNPN/DNLA working either.
This left me using AirPlay (1). The problem with AirPlay 1, rather than the current AirPlay 2, is that there is a 2second lag on all media, which means seeking through media is near impossible - especially video. It's "fine" if you want to put something on and just let it play uninterrupted.
I've repurposed that Pi4 now but do want to build up another but trying to get hold of pi4 is near impossible right now. But when I do I'll be trying out HifiBerry OS. I think one issue is a lot of these software stacks are trying to be media centres with spotify et al integration. Whereas I want to stream from my phone, laptop or computer and have it play over my hifi without Jacking-in.
Did something similar. Pi is on a wired port for better network reliability, and with X forwarding the GUI for the media program I wrote running on the pi comes up on any box in my network. Still surprised how few know about X forwarding, been in the spec and available since the late 80's.
Probably because the whole X system is very clunky and if/when it breaks it is well outside over a normal persons ability to fix it.
I think these days having a web interface, which volumio did, is more intuitive and then you can open it from any device which has a browser.
For what it's worth, I set up file sharing from the RPi4 over our home network using Samba. The RPi4 is plugged into a short Ethernet cable running directly to a port on our home router, to avoid the additional latency and slow throughput of WiFi.
Samba is the set of Linux tools that implements Microsoft Windows compatible file sharing over the network. Any other computing device on our home network can see the shared files from the Pi over the network.
For example, I have another RPi4 in the master bedroom, connected to a TV for display, and using WiFi to connect to our home network. The bedroom Pi runs standard Raspberry Pi OS, except that I installed Thunar (XFCE file manager) on it ("sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y thunar" ).
Thunar is network-aware. If I open Thunar, it shows available files and folders shared over the network, as well as local files. To play a video or audio clip from our Pi server in our bedroom, all I have to do is click on the folders shared by the media server, and find the file I want.
If it's an audio or video file, I can open it with VLC (an excellent audio/video player for Linux). The file will then play on the bedroom Raspberry Pi, which is connected to a pair of speakers as well as the TV in the bedroom.
COVID "brain-fog" is making me unsure if I've had to first copy the file to the local computer over the network, before opening it with VLC. I don't recall having to do this, but at the moment, the brain-fog is pretty bad, and I don't recall what I had for dinner last night either. (COVID-induced "brain fog" is like a preview of being 95 years old with Alzheimer's).
Doing things this way is no more complicated than finding and playing a media file on the same computer you're using. I just use the file manager to find the file I want.
Of course file transfers can go either way. If I'm using the bedroom TV when I find, say, and interesting free guitar backing track in MP3 form, I can save that straight to the file-server Pi in the living room, if I want.
I thought about installing a Web server on the file-server Pi and writing (or finding) some minimal code so I could browse to the music/video collection that way. But I really don't see an advantage compared to simply using a file browser over the network. Maybe a disadvantage, for security reasons - better not to expose the additional security holes in a 'Web server, for one thing.
So, in my case, I didn't write any custom code, and I used only the rock-solid officially blessed current version of 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS. The only additional thing I did was install Thunar on other RPi clients, as the file manager that comes with Raspberry Pi OS doesn't seem to be network-aware. (I couldn't persuade it to show the network shared files at all.)
Oh yeah, also I bought a little external USB sound card the size of a stick of chewing gum, and used a short USB cable to plug it into the bedroom Pi4. We all know the built-in sound in the Pi4 isn't very good, but the cheap little external USB sound card sounds just fine. The limiting factor in audio quality is invariably the loudspeakers, not the sound card.
I agree about the major shortage of actual Raspberry Pi 4 hardware. However, last time I checked, the Pi 400 was still available. This is a Pi4 built into a keyboard, with an internal heatsink that lets it run slightly faster than a regular Pi 4 (it's overclocked straight from the factory).
I'm not a big fan of the actual keyboard part of the Pi 400, but buying a Pi400 may be the best way to get a Pi4. You can always plug in a wired or wireless keyboard of your choice, and just ignore the keyboard built into the Pi 400 itself.
-Gnobuddy