Operation Manual

Chapter 7: The Pi as a Home Theatre PC
One of the most popular tasks for a Pi to carry out is that of a home theatre PC, or HTPC. The Broadcom BCM2835 at the
Pi’s heart is specifically designed as a multimedia powerhouse, originally developed for use in HTPCs.
The graphics portion of the BCM2835 system-on-chip (SoC) design, a Broadcom VideoCore IV module, is capable of full-
speed high-definition video playback using the popular H.264 format. The chip is also able to play back audio files in a variety of
formats, both through the analogue 3.5 mm audio output and digitally via the HDMI port.
The small size, low power draw and silent operation combine to make the Pi a tempting device for home theatre enthusiasts. A
variety of distributions and software packages designed to turn the Pi into a user-friendly home theatre PC have appeared since
its launch, but you don’t necessarily need to give up your existing operating system to get started.
Playing Music at the Console
If you’re a developer, you will likely spend most of your time at the Pi’s console. With the majority of music playback software
being aimed at desktop use, it can be a quiet experience—but it doesn’t have to be.
The Pi supports a powerful text-based music playback package called moc (which stands for music on console). Unlike other
tools (such as LXMusic), moc can be installed and used even when there is no graphical user interface (GUI) installed on the Pi.
To get started, install the moc package from your distribution’s repositories. For the Debian distribution, this is as simple as
typing the following command at the console or in a terminal window:
sudo apt-get install moc
Some distributions already have another tool called moc, which has nothing to do with audio playback. If you find that installing moc doesn’t give
you the result you’re expecting, try substituting mocp as the package name.
If you spend a lot of time outside of the graphical user interface and working at the console, moc is a great choice for music
playback. Unlike other tools, it runs in the background, meaning there’s no interruption to your music if you start doing something
else.
To load moc, the command is mocp rather than moc. The reason for this is that there’s another tool which uses the command
moc, so a different name was chosen to prevent the operating system from getting confused between the two packages.
To get started, just enter the console—or a terminal window if you’re using a desktop environment—and type the following:
mocp
The standard mocp interface is split into two panes (see Figure 7-1). The left pane is a file browser, which allows you to look for
music to play. The cursor keys scroll up and down the list, while the Enter key starts playback from the currently highlighted
song. If you press Enter on a directory name, the browser will enter that directory, while pressing it at the ../ entry at the top of
the list goes back one directory level. The right pane shows the current playlist.
Figure 7-1: The standard interface of the mocp console-based music player