Raspberry Pi a rPlay – Make the audio AirPlay and video without Apple TV

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Since a few days the company VMLite offers a beta version of its software rPlay. The test is so hot ! 🙂

At home we have several Apple devices : iMac, iPad, etc. But not Apple TV. So if you want to send the device screen on the TV, Ben can't ! The protocol used by Apple, the AirPlay Mirroring, being reserved for their Apple TV to broadcast on TV.

Since a few days, il est maintenant possible d’en profiter sur le Raspberry Pi grâce à rPlay de chez VMLite. Still in beta, You can get it on simple mail to Info@vmlite.com. You will then receive the link, How to install and a key to activate rPlay. Because Yes, and this is what bothers me, need a key ! It smells good like the tool that it will have to pay on a platform Open Source.

In all cases to install it it is pretty simple :

1. Update the system

   apt-get update && apt-get -y upgrade

2. Install the dependencies

   apt - get install –y libao-dev avahi-utils libavahi-compat-libdnssd-dev libva-dev youtube-dl

3. Update youtube-dl

   YouTube-dl - update

4. Download rPlay (a good 6 MB)

   wget -O rplay-1.0.1-armhf.deb http://www.vmlite.com/rplay/rplay-1.0.1-armhf.deb

5. Start the installation

   dpkg-I rplay - 1.0.1 - armhf.deb

   You have a nice warning message.
   
[ ok ] Starting rplay:.
root@raspberrypi:~# ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.front
*** WARNING *** The program 'rplay' uses the Apple Bonjour compatibility layer of Avahi.
*** WARNING *** Please fix your application to use the native API of Avahi!
*** WARNING *** For more information see <http://0pointer.de/avahi-compat?s=libdns_sd&e=rplay>

   No need to worry, it comes from the implementation of rPlay. Nothing serious. The app must be in memory
   
root@raspberrypi:~# ps -ef | grep rplay
root 4737 1 0 19:22 pts/0 00:00:00 /usr/bin/rplay
root 4789 3301 0 19:29 pts/0 00:00:00 grep rplay
root@raspberrypi:~#


6. You must then activate your copy. For this, go to the page :

    http://<IP of your Raspberry>:7100/Admin

   Attention, Safari seems to cause problems, go through another browser
   The login and the password are the same : Admin
   At the bottom of page you can enter your license received by email.

7. A last adjustment : the memory allocation. Ideally it's half for the CPU for the GPU.
8. If you have not yet connected your Raspberry Pi on TV now is the time.
9. On your device, for me an iPad, you double - tap on the button, go completely to the left and you can activate the AirPlay
   
10. And launch your favorite application
    A nice The Block Heads on TV !

There is a little lag time but anything dramatic unless you play a kind of races for example game.

Another thing, VLC did not appear. If the screen freezes. As soon as one leaves VLC screen unlocks.

If there are small side concern performance, It is a very promising app. Remains to know the tariff policy that could tip the balance of the good side and the bad.

[EDIT 30/08/2013] VMlite provides with a Raspberry Model B 512 MB, performance is much better.
For release, It will not Open Source but be sold “at a cheap price”. They have as a project to integrate it into a device. Which in my opinion means that they will release their Google/Apple TV soon !