Pioneer AVH-270BT - Playing video from USB

[BaShMu]

Introduction

I'm writing this as a quick walk through for Ubuntu Linux users who have a Pioneer AVH-270BT fitted in their vehicle and are struggling playing downloaded YouTube video files from USB.

This may or may not work for other video formats, at the time of writing this has only been tested with .mp4 files downloaded from YouTube.

Install Youtube-dl

Firstly, on Ubuntu make sure you have youtube-dl installed either from the repository;

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sudo apt install youtube-dl

 

Or, from the official website or Git repository;

Youtube-dl Link

Download Youtube Video

Once installed, find a video you want to download and copy its Uniform Resource Locator (URL) from the address bar. At the time of this writing, a link will look like the following;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxqYDrELD_E

Now, youtube-dl allows us to download different qualities of video, with different screen resolutions, using the -F switch, an example of this follows;

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Hacker@Hacked-Laptop:~$ youtube-dl -F https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxqYDrELD_E
[youtube] dxqYDrELD_E: Downloading webpage
[youtube] dxqYDrELD_E: Downloading video info webpage
[info] Available formats for dxqYDrELD_E:
format code  extension  resolution note
249          webm       audio only DASH audio   63k , opus @ 50k, 2.32MiB
250          webm       audio only DASH audio   82k , opus @ 70k, 3.03MiB
140          m4a        audio only DASH audio  130k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.2@128k, 5.17MiB
171          webm       audio only DASH audio  134k , vorbis@128k, 4.92MiB
251          webm       audio only DASH audio  161k , opus @160k, 5.89MiB
160          mp4        256x144    144p  112k , avc1.4d400c, 30fps, video only, 3.18MiB
278          webm       256x144    144p  114k , webm container, vp9, 30fps, video only, 3.83MiB
242          webm       426x240    240p  225k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 6.79MiB
133          mp4        426x240    240p  337k , avc1.4d4015, 30fps, video only, 7.42MiB
243          webm       640x360    360p  414k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 12.06MiB
134          mp4        640x360    360p  688k , avc1.4d401e, 30fps, video only, 14.46MiB
244          webm       854x480    480p  755k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 19.57MiB
135          mp4        854x480    480p  978k , avc1.4d401f, 30fps, video only, 20.64MiB
247          webm       1280x720   720p 1532k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 35.37MiB
136          mp4        1280x720   720p 2050k , avc1.4d401f, 30fps, video only, 32.93MiB
248          webm       1920x1080  1080p 2727k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 84.15MiB
137          mp4        1920x1080  1080p 4333k , avc1.640028, 30fps, video only, 105.03MiB
18           mp4        640x360    medium , avc1.42001E, mp4a.40.2@ 96k, 24.68MiB
43           webm       640x360    medium , vp8.0, vorbis@128k, 33.84MiB
22           mp4        1280x720   hd720 , avc1.64001F, mp4a.40.2@192k (best)

In this example I will be using the number 22 option;

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22 mp4 1280x720   hd720 , avc1.64001F, mp4a.40.2@192k (best)

Once we know the option we require, we download the video using the -f switch passing in the option as follows;

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Hacker@Hacked-Laptop:~$ youtube-dl -f 22 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxqYDrELD_E
[youtube] dxqYDrELD_E: Downloading webpage
[youtube] dxqYDrELD_E: Downloading video info webpage
[download] Destination: What Happens If One Million People Actually Stormed Area 51-dxqYDrELD_E.mp4
[download] 100% of 38.08MiB in 00:08

Once the video is downloaded, if you chose the .mp4 option, it is time to convert the video to a playable file format and screen resolution. In this example I will be converting the .mp4 file to divx with the .avi file format with a screen resolution of 640x480.

Converting Your Video

On Ubuntu, if you have ffmpeg you can either batch convert or single file convert. To batch convert, first create a shell script file, I created the file convert.sh in the directory where my video files are I want to convert. I added the following shell code to my convert.sh file then saved the file;

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#!/bin/bash

for i in *.mp4; do ffmpeg -i "$i" -c:v mpeg4 -q:v 5 -tag:v DIVX -s 640x480 -c:a libmp3lame -q:a 5 -ac 2 -ar 44100 "$(basename "$i" .mp4)".avi ; done

I then  made the convert.sh file an executable file by changing its permissions using the command;

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chmod u+x convert.sh

I then ran the file using the command;

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sh convert.sh

Or, for a single video without using a shell script you can use the command;

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ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v mpeg4 -q:v 5 -tag:v DIVX -s 640x480 -c:a libmp3lame -q:a 5 -ac 2 -ar 44100 output.avi

Making sure you replace input.mp4 with your downloaded file name and the output.avi with the name you want your file to be.

Automated Process

I have created an automated shell script which can be added to a file as mentioned above which is a work in progress, simply create a convert.sh file as above, add the following shell code instead of the shell code mentioned in the previous chapter.

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#!/bin/bash

RED='\033[0;31m'
GREEN='\033[0;32m'
NC='\033[0m' # No Color

echo "${RED}################################################${NC}"
echo "Enter 1 for multi-file convert or 2 to download "
echo "a single file and convert"
echo " "
read -p "Enter Option: "  option
echo " "

case "$option" in
    
    #case 1
    "1")

    echo "Converting multiple files"
    for i in *.mp4; do ffmpeg -i "$i" -c:v mpeg4 -q:v 5 -tag:v DIVX -s 640x480 -c:a libmp3lame -q:a 5 -ac 2 -ar 44100 "$(basename "$i" .mp4)".avi ; done
    ;;

    #case 2
    "2")

    echo " "
    echo "${RED}################################################${NC}"
    read -p "Enter Youtube Video Link: "  videolink
    echo " "

    youtube-dl -F $videolink

    echo " "
    echo "${RED}################################################${NC}"
    read -p "Enter Youtube Video Quality: "  videoquality
    echo " "

    videofilename=$(youtube-dl --get-filename -f $videoquality $videolink)

    youtube-dl -f $videoquality $videolink

    echo " "
    echo "${RED}################################################${NC}"
    echo "Converting your video to DIVX with a 640x480    "
    echo "video resolution for use with your Pioneer Radio"
    echo " "

    videotitle=${videofilename%.*}

    ffmpeg -i "$videofilename" -c:v mpeg4 -q:v 5 -tag:v DIVX -s 640x480 -c:a libmp3lame -q:a 5 -ac 2 -ar 44100 "$videotitle-640x480".avi

    echo " "
    echo "${RED}################################################${NC}"
    echo "Your file has been converted."
    read -p "Delete old mp4 file, Yes[y] or No[n], Enter Option: " deloption
    echo " "

    #Pass the variable in string
    case "$deloption" in
        #case 1
        "y")
        rm "$videofilename"
        echo "You're done, $videofilename removed"
        exit ;;
      
        #case 2
        "n")
        echo "You're done, $videofilename not removed"
        exit ;;

    esac     

    ;;

esac

If anyone feels like adding to or rewriting the shell script please can you repost for other people.

Conclusion

Converting will depend on the time of the video file and the resources of your computer. Once complete, you should be able to play the converted YouTube video on your head unit.

These commands worked for me every time, I have an AVH-270BT I bought second hand and it has a screen resolution of 800x480. I couldn't get it to work using other resolutions, it kept saying screen resolution not supported.

References

1. https://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Car/DVD+Receivers/AVH-270BT#manuals

2. https://www.taniarascia.com/how-to-create-and-use-bash-scripts/

3. https://superuser.com/questions/309822/ffmpeg-command-to-convert-to-divx

4. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5784661/how-do-you-convert-an-entire-directory-with-ffmpeg

5. https://superuser.com/questions/1150745/how-to-convert-multiple-videos-into-avi-one-after-another