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We’ve had a few people ask exactly what they can do with the new MPEG-2 and VC-1 licences we made available last week for download. Like Raspberry Pi on Facebook. Why does a Raspberry Pi require a key. Purchasing the license will enable a single Raspberry Pi to decode MPEG-2 video in hardware. The Raspberry Pi is not the. Free MPEG2, VC1, DTS hardware decoding for Raspberry Pi #2149. Why does the Raspberry Pi need a MPEG-2 licence? Could you please edit your answer specifying that the Raspberry Pi is still able to play MPEG2 streams via. So i bought a MPEG 2 license (still waiting) and i just wanted to confirm the location i would add the key to? Would i just add to sudo nano /boot/config.txt and that's it? Or would it be in a different location.
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Comments
commented Apr 1, 2013
Hi, Any chance you could implement this hack into your Pi release of OpenELEC? The Raspbmc did it so maybe OpenELEC could do the same:) Thanks |
commented Apr 1, 2013
uhmmm we already have codec support, all what you need is here for months now: we have better things in the pipeline.... see: impressed? |
commented Apr 1, 2013
that was pure epic @turexy :) |
commented Apr 1, 2013
Errrrr correct me if I'm wrong, with the hack I posted in my original post you don't need to pay for a license. |
commented Apr 1, 2013
you are wrong ;) |
commented Apr 1, 2013
Just tried and doesn't work :( |
commented Apr 1, 2013
Works perfect. Thanks!!!!! |
commented Apr 1, 2013
@rbej what is working perfect? |
commented Apr 18, 2013
The aprilfools joke I guess. Heh |
commented Sep 12, 2018
possible idea: just reboot with different random values until it works... |
Raspberry Pi 2 Components
I was reading here and the article said that linux distros often use free versions of MPEG2. On my Raspberry Pi, however, I had to purchase a license to achieve playback of some of my files. I never had to do this on my (ubuntu) desktop before. The article I linked to wasn't very clear about the differences between the RPi and my Linux laptop; can anyone expound on the differences between these two?
Thank you!!
Breakthrough1 Answer
Actually, you can decode MPEG2 on a Raspberry Pi without the decryption key. The difference is that without the key, you can only use software decoding, which makes real-time playback of HD content very challenging considering the Raspberry Pi's hardware (I've noted some dropped frames on mine).
As per the Raspberry Pi Website, purchasing the license will enable a single Raspberry Pi to decode MPEG-2 video in hardware. The Raspberry Pi is not the most powerful device, and with a single core 700 MHz ARM processor, it might have trouble decoding higher resolution videos. In this case, you might want to consider purchasing a decoder key to unlock the hardware decoder (which should be capable of decoding even Blu-ray quality MPEG streams).
Note that if you are using a Raspberry Pi to play back these videos, some Blu-ray rips (playing back Blu-ray movies directly can be challenging on Linux due to licensing requirements) also use the VC1 codec; there is another applicable hardware decoder you can purchase for that as well - should the software decoder not be fast enough for your needs.
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