Screen for Pi Music Box

Pi MusicBox
1

hi,
I have a 3.5 inch screen attached to my raspberry pi and I was wondering, if there’s any way I can install the Pi Music Box on it and display whatever is “Now Playing” on it.

Is it possible? Any help/pointers will be appreciated!

Thanks,
addie

2

Have you looked at the Pirate Audio stuff? https://github.com/pimoroni/pirate-audio

I don’t know if it’s possible with Pi Music Box, I think their instructions are for plain Mopidy.

3

I think their stuff technically requires a newer version of Mopidy, not sure if it could be made to work. Their C-based screen driver might have some particular dependencies.

4

Thank you for your replies.

I managed to get a bit far - I have mostly followed the guide here: https://medium.com/@johndavidsimmons/reviving-a-console-stereo-with-a-raspberry-pi-and-pimusicbox-377999de3eed

The whole idea is, run the pimusicbox with a attached screen to show the “now playing” - that is esentially running chromium in kiosk mode.

I have a 1 TB hard drive (externally powered) which I am trying to use here.

I am having some other issues like:

  1. some folders (with 300+ files) are taking a long time to load - first on the “Browse” and then while adding them to the queue takes a very long time.
  2. While adding the whole folder to the queue, it also adds the album art jpegs and tries to play them once in the queue! And since they can’t be played, the playback stops at folder.jpg
  3. I am really missing a shuffle-through-folders feature. But, a workaround for this could be to add them all in one big playlist and shuffle it. Fair enough - but - the same old problem with time taken while loading the playlist happens.
  4. I have a carefully curated music collection with embedded artwork and it’s a shame that it can’t be put to use here as I think the artwork is not picked from there. (and in my case, it can’t be picked up from the usual online sources as this is not a english music collection)

If any inputs on the above, it would be great :slight_smile:

None of this is, of course, a deal-breaker. I am enjoying using this so am thankful for what I have!

Best,
addie

5

I’d forgotten I spent a while doing this, have a look at here, not sure if it’s still relevant though, it’s 3 years ago.
Edit; Having spent a couple of hours trying this last evening I would not recommend it, a lot of the wheezy update files aren’t easily available. Even if I had got it working I’m not sure how stable it would have been.