There is not anything slightly like a excellent film evening. A projector and display screen blended with a encompass sound gadget give me a style of the true film revel in, and a bowl of popcorn provides to the impact. What is lacking is a film poster for no matter I am staring at, so I made up our minds to peer if I may have the option to make that occur, too.
I sought after to construct a “now appearing” show for my TV
A film poster for the present content material
The idea that was once slightly easy. One of the crucial apps, products and services and units that I exploit to look at displays and films have integrations that reveal “now taking part in” information to House Assistant. As an example, the usage of the Jellyfin integration, House Assistant can see data equivalent to the present play state, the name of the film, and most significantly for my wishes, an entity_picture characteristic that exposes the film poster from Jellyfin.
I sought after to have the option to have this poster symbol mechanically show in my lounge once I get started staring at a film. For this to occur, I wanted a display screen to show the picture. There have been a number of choices, equivalent to wall-mounting a pill or having the poster display at the tiny display screen of my Echo Display 5, however the usage of a complete pill appeared like overkill, and the Echo Display was once a ways too small.
- Dimensions (external)
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4.41″L x 4.41″W x 1.26″H
- Weight
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12 Oz
House Assistant Inexperienced is a pre-built hub without delay from the House Assistant staff. It is a plug-and-play answer that incorporates the entirety you wish to have to arrange House Assistant in your house with no need to put in the tool your self.
An outdated iPad 2 was once sitting unused
The glass was once cracked however the show was once effective
I’ve 4 outdated iPad 2 fashions in a field in my house administrative center. They are too outdated as a way to run the rest helpful; I will be able to’t even open House Assistant in Safari, because the browser is so old-fashioned. Two of the iPads even have cracked displays.
I questioned whether or not it could be conceivable to tear the show out of this kind of iPads, hook it as much as a Raspberry Pi, and stick the show into a photograph body. I may then use the iPad show to turn the film poster for no matter I used to be staring at.
A bit web analysis published that this was once fully conceivable. I may purchase a controller board for the iPad 2 show that will permit me to glue it to my Raspberry Pi the usage of an HDMI cable. I may then display no matter I sought after at the show.
The controller board set me again about $15 (even supposing it is dearer from Amazon), and that was once my handiest expense, as I already had the important 12V 3A energy provide with 5.5 × 2.1 mm connector in my field of unused tech, together with an HDMI cable. I made up our minds to construct the undertaking with my Raspberry Pi 3B+ as an explanation of thought; this may be overkill for my wishes, however I did not have a spare mini HDMI to HDMI cable, and the Pi 0 2 W that I’d have used in a different way handiest has a mini HDMI port.
Dismantling the iPad wasn’t too horrific; I used a hair dryer to melt the adhesive across the edges and pried the display screen off. I handiest had to unclip one connector to extract the show. Hooking it as much as the controller board simply concerned attaching the board’s cable to the show and connecting my Pi to the board the usage of the HDMI cable. As soon as attached, I powered the entirety on, and Raspberry Pi OS seemed at the iPad’s show.
5 Causes I Use Jellyfin As an alternative of Plex
Jellyfin’s value is not the one factor going for it.
Showing the present content material at the display screen
Jellyfin and Sky Q uncovered what I wanted
The following segment was once to get the show to turn the poster for the present film. The Jellyfin integration in House Assistant already gave me a hyperlink to the picture I wanted, so I simply wanted a solution to get this symbol to show at the display screen.
I attempted a couple of other how to get this to paintings, together with operating Chromium in kiosk mode, the usage of a framebuffer symbol viewer command-line software, and the usage of Pygame, however those strategies had been both unnecessarily heavy, gave me scaling problems, or had been unreliable when known as from a background provider.
In any case, I opted to transform the picture into uncooked pixel information and write it without delay to the Linux framebuffer. There was once little need for a desktop atmosphere, browser, or show server simply to turn the picture. This system gave me a fantastic symbol at the iPad show with none scaling problems, and it was once greater than rapid sufficient for a picture that handiest must replace once I get started or forestall a film or TV display.
In addition to getting now taking part in data from Jellyfin, I used to be ready to tug it from my Sky Q set-top field too, so I may create a now taking part in symbol when staring at are living TV channels. An automation detects when Jellyfin or Sky Q begins taking part in and makes use of a REST command to ship an HTTP POST request to a Flask server operating at the Raspberry Pi, with a payload containing the poster symbol URL.
The Pi downloads the picture and processes it to fit the show. The art work is resized whilst keeping its facet ratio, positioned onto a customized canvas, given a blurred background to fill any unused display screen house, and circled to check the portrait orientation of the show. The general symbol is then transformed into RGB565 structure, the 16-bit pixel structure utilized by the framebuffer.
The uncooked information is written to /dev/fb0, which updates the display screen to show the transformed poster symbol. The upshot is that I am getting stunning film poster art work at the iPad’s show on every occasion I get started a display or film in Jellyfin or watch one thing on my Sky Q field.
Repurposing my iPad feels nice
I have been in need of to discover a truly helpful solution to repurpose my outdated iPads for a very long time, and this can be a good way to take action. My subsequent steps are to have the display screen show circle of relatives pictures when I am not staring at TV, and to show the present PS5 sport I am taking part in when I am gaming. At round $40 for a Pi 0 2 W and the iPad show controller board, I am for sure going to tear the displays out of my different outdated iPads slightly quickly.
