EmbyPi with a Touchscreen

[Baenwort 97]

So I'm using the latest available Emby Raspberry img.  (3.0.19)

As I've been troubleshooting here: https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?p=2115882#p2115882 there is an issue with the Emby image and the official rapsberry pi touchscreen.  So far it seems that the Emby img isn't using xinput and this is causing the touch area to not map correctly to the display area. 

What modification or change to the input setup has been made from the stock Bullseye image?

Edited June 25, 2023 by Baenwort

[alucryd 216]

We make no modification, it's just the official image with the emby-theater deb and cec-utils installed on top. Touchscreens on the Pi have never been an exact science, there's always black magic happening somewhere in the config.txt file, and it seems to have gotten worse on the pi 3 with recent debian versions.

My official touchscreen completely broke on the pi 3 a few months ago when I updated my system (granted I'm using Arch Linux ARM and not Debian), I managed to get it working after quite a struggle, with the correct orientation, happy to share my config.txt next time I boot my 3D printer.

As for theater, it is using an old electron, so it's definitely not using wayland and libinput, and the default session is running on X.org anyway and should be using xinput.

[Baenwort 97]

I would like to see what you used to get it working please. @alucryd

 

Per the raspberrypi person at the forum link I gave (https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?p=2118733#p2118733) they seem to think that Emby has customized the package somehow and that is why xinput is not working.

[alucryd 216]

@BaenwortHere's what I have:

# See /boot/overlays/README for all available options

gpu_mem=128
#start_x=1
#disable_camera_led=1

dtoverlay=disable-bt

lcd_rotate=2

dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d
initramfs initramfs-linux.img followkernel

# Automatically load overlays for detected DSI displays
display_auto_detect=1

# uncomment if hdmi display is not detected and composite is being output
#hdmi_force_hotplug=1

# Uncomment some or all of these to enable the optional hardware interfaces
dtparam=i2c_arm=on
#dtparam=i2s=on
#dtparam=spi=on

# Uncomment this to enable infrared communication.
#dtoverlay=gpio-ir,gpio_pin=17
#dtoverlay=gpio-ir-tx,gpio_pin=18

# Automatically load overlays for detected cameras
camera_auto_detect=1

# Uncomment to enable bluetooth
#dtparam=krnbt=on

[cm4]
# Enable host mode on the 2711 built-in XHCI USB controller.
# This line should be removed if the legacy DWC2 controller is required
# (e.g. for USB device mode) or if USB support is not required.
otg_mode=1

[pi4]
# Run as fast as firmware / board allows
arm_boost=1

display_auto_detect works fine here as long as I select the fkms driver (everything breaks when using the kms driver, and I wasn't able to get both the thouch and screen to work at the same time with it).

[Baenwort 97]

On 6/30/2023 at 2:35 AM, alucryd said:

We make no modification, it's just the official image with the emby-theater deb and cec-utils installed on top. Touchscreens on the Pi have never been an exact science, there's always black magic happening somewhere in the config.txt file, and it seems to have gotten worse on the pi 3 with recent debian versions.

My official touchscreen completely broke on the pi 3 a few months ago when I updated my system (granted I'm using Arch Linux ARM and not Debian), I managed to get it working after quite a struggle, with the correct orientation, happy to share my config.txt next time I boot my 3D printer.

As for theater, it is using an old electron, so it's definitely not using wayland and libinput, and the default session is running on X.org anyway and should be using xinput.

So I gave up on getting my Pi3B to work with the touchscreen and took advantage of the holidays to get a Pi5.

Since I can't get the Emby img to work on the Pi 5 with the touchscreen I'm trying to build from a stock Raspbian Bookworm img and adding Emby Theater to it.

I've gotten the 7" official touchscreen to easily work and am now starting down the path of adding Emby Theater.

Did you do anything beyond the deb and required dependencies from: https://emby.media/emby-theater-linux.html for aarch64? I'm assuming you did some Kiosk like stuff as my memory from when my Pi was working with the touchscreen was that it booted straight into Emby-Theater?

[Baenwort 97]

For those following in my footsteps you will need to switch Bookworm from Wayland back to X11 via raspi-config to get Emby-Theater working. I think. Testing will continue after the weekend.

I did find that I was able to use the web-view via Chromium and it could handle without dropping frames anything that was able to direct play.  Still need to play more but 1080p AV1 and x264 seem to be fine.  It also works for Chromecasting audio as the Pi5 doesn't have a native analog sound out like the Pi3B that I retired to running HAOS.

Edited December 24, 2023 by Baenwort

[Luke 37066]

@Baenwortthanks for sharing your experience. Bookwork support is on our to do list in the short term future for Emby Theater.

[Baenwort 97]

So for a Raspberry Pi 5 running Bookworm and using the webclient I did the following:

• Install the full Desktop OS for Bookworm (and configure SSH, WIFI, etc) using Raspberry Pi Imager (1.8.5 or newer): https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/getting-started.html#raspberry-pi-imager 
  • On first boot you'll get prompted to configure everything. Make sure you do this as you intend to operate the device as once you have it booting full screen into Emby it will be much harder to setup Bluetooth Speakers or other options.
• Update the OS and apps if the startup prompts didn't ask you to by SSHing into your Pi and doing: https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/os.html#using-apt
• If using the official touchscreen you need to rotate it by following: https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/accessories/display.html
• Install on-screen keyboard:  https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=358147
• Once you've verified you can reach your Emby server by opening Chromium and typing in the address you can proceed a couple ways. I'm sharing what I did.
• Setup the Pi to autostart into the Emby webclient with it maximized by following:  https://www.raspberrypi.com/tutorials/how-to-use-a-raspberry-pi-in-kiosk-mode/
  • I did not follow the wayland.ini exactly as I did not have an autostart segment but created one and only put in a single line:

    chromium = chromium-browser "https://embyaddress:portaddress/" --kiosk --noerrdialogs --disable-infobars --no-first-run --ozone-platform=wayland --enable-features=OverlayScrollbar --start-maximized

This works to run all the 1080p direct play videos I've tried so far (AV1 and x264) and my Emby Server transcodes well enough that the 4K HDR titles work.  

Testing with Emby Theater using X11 will be tried eventually but this is working really well for my purposes of being a Chromecast control center for the house audio and local video playback via a Bluetooth speaker of instructional videos I've downloaded off YouTube to my Emby Server.