gstreamer video output on pi framebuffer without X

Question

I am running the latest Jessie image on my pi2 B. I have gstreamer-1.0 installed with gstreamer omx plugins. gst-inspect confirms the omx plugins are installed. I am not using the X server and need to output directly to the hdmi framebuffer.

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ gst-inspect-1.0 | grep omx
omx: omxmpeg2videodec: OpenMAX MPEG2 Video Decoder
omx: omxmpeg4videodec: OpenMAX MPEG4 Video Decoder
omx: omxh263dec: OpenMAX H.263 Video Decoder
omx: omxh264dec: OpenMAX H.264 Video Decoder
omx: omxtheoradec: OpenMAX Theora Video Decoder
omx: omxvp8dec: OpenMAX VP8 Video Decoder
omx: omxmjpegdec: OpenMAX MJPEG Video Decoder
omx: omxvc1dec: OpenMAX WMV Video Decoder
omx: omxh264enc: OpenMAX H.264 Video Encoder
omx: omxanalogaudiosink: OpenMAX Analog Audio Sink
omx: omxhdmiaudiosink: OpenMAX HDMI Audio Sink

I am unable to play any video back on the framebuffer. I do not seem to have any video sinks installed and I cannot seem to figure out what gstreamer packages I am missing.

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ gst-inspect-1.0 | grep sink
omx: omxanalogaudiosink: OpenMAX Analog Audio Sink
omx: omxhdmiaudiosink: OpenMAX HDMI Audio Sink
tcp: multisocketsink: Multi socket sink
tcp: multifdsink: Multi filedescriptor sink
tcp: tcpserversink: TCP server sink
tcp: tcpclientsink: TCP client sink
app: appsink: AppSink
playback: playsink: Player Sink
gio: giostreamsink: GIO stream sink
gio: giosink: GIO sink
coreelements: filesink: File Sink
coreelements: fdsink: Filedescriptor Sink
coreelements: fakesink: Fake Sink

I know that video output to the framebuffer works, because I can use omxplayer and see the video I am trying to play. I need gstreamer to work because I need more flexibility than omxplayer can provide.

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ gst-launch-1.0 filesrc location=myvideo.mpg ! decodebin ! autovideosink
WARNING: erroneous pipeline: no element "autovideosink"
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ gst-launch-1.0 filesrc location=myvideo.mpg ! decodebin ! fbdevsink
WARNING: erroneous pipeline: no element "fbdevsink"

What am I missing to playback video on the pi framebuffer device? Is there an omxhdmivideosink?

Thanks.

• Adam Plocher: Hi did you have any luck with this? I'm having a smiilar issue with gstreamer + framebuffer on Raspbian. Thx
• Dan: no, I was not able to figure it out. I switched to omxplayer to get a temporary implementation. gstreamer would be the best solution once I get this answer.

Answer 1

The one way you can output directly to the frame buffer is using fbdevsink, e.g.:

gst-launch-1.0 -v videotestsrc ! fbdevsink

The fbdevsink can be found in the gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad package.

• mpr: Any experiences with this solution sometimes yielding a blank screen? My experience is that sometimes the user can output to /dev/fb0, but other times it'll silently fail.
• Dmitry: @mpr Yes. I had this problem on RPi 2 rev.B with Raspbian, and haven't found any solution. Only reboot helped. Though everything goes fine on RPi 3 for already an year.
• mpr: Ok here's an interesting detail. If I set the hdmi_group and hdmi_mode in config.txt, reboot, and don't use tvservice at all, fbdevsink works. After invoking tvservice, fbdevsink no longer works. I'm currently testing on a Raspbery Pi 3 Model B V 1.2.
• mpr: Ok it looks like calls to tvservice may also need a following, matching call to fbset. See here: raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=52309
• Dmitry: Thanks. Now I have a stable behavior using this series of commands (my monitor has 1280x1024 resolution): tvservice -o, tvservice -p, fbset -depth 8, fbset -g 1280 1024 1280 1024 16