Idus Halloween-player

The Idus Halloween Player — random scares in your window, run from your browser.

A small player for a Raspberry Pi and a projector (or a TV) that shows random Halloween videos, like AtmosFX digital decorations, with a random pitch-dark pause between them, so trick-or-treaters never know when the next ghost shows up. You run the whole show from a web GUI on your PC or phone.

_{Works on a phone too.}

Why

Projecting ghosts onto a window is the best Halloween trick there is, but a DVD loop or a laptop on repeat plays the scares back-to-back, in the same order, with a desktop or a mouse pointer flashing in between. Idus HW-player shuffles the videos, keeps the window black for a random while between scares, plays only during the hours you choose, and lets you run it all from the sofa, or from the garden on your phone.

Requirements

• A Raspberry Pi. A Pi 4 or 5 is preferred — hardware decode for both H.264 and H.265, 4K output, and plenty of headroom. A Pi 3 / 3B works too, as long as your videos are H.264 1080p: the Pi 3 has hardware H.264 decode but no hardware H.265 (HEVC) decode, so HEVC files stutter. Re-encode those to H.264 first (see Tips). AtmosFX / AtmosFearFX downloads are H.264, so they play as-is. Any Debian-based Linux works.
• Raspberry Pi OS Lite (no desktop) is recommended: the screen stays truly black between videos. On a Pi 3 with 1 GB RAM, the 32-bit Lite image is the leanest choice. With a desktop install, the installer offers to boot to console instead.
• A projector or TV on HDMI
• mpv and Python 3.9+ (the installer installs mpv; Python comes with Raspberry Pi OS)

Check a file's codec before uploading: ffprobe -v error -select_streams v:0 -show_entries stream=codec_name,width,height -of csv=p=0 video.mp4 → h264 plays anywhere; hevc needs a Pi 4/5 or a re-encode to H.264.

Install

Download the three files (or grab them from Releases), put them in one folder on the Pi, then run as your normal user:

bash install-idus-hw-player.sh

• You choose a password for the web GUI, or press Enter to get a generated one.
• Videos go in ~/HW-videos by default. Change with HW_VIDEO_DIR=/path bash install-idus-hw-player.sh
• The web GUI uses port 8080. Change with HW_PORT=8081 bash install-idus-hw-player.sh
• At the end the installer prints the address, e.g. http://192.168.1.50:8080. Open it on your PC or phone, log in (any user name, your password) and upload some videos.
• The player starts on every boot. Run the installer again to update; your password and settings are kept.

What the web GUI does

Group	Control	Action
Now	On / Off	Off keeps the window dark until you switch it back on
	Play a video now / Next video	Skips the pause, or the video that is playing
	Stop video	Stops the current video; the pause starts
Settings	Pause between videos	Random pause between the shortest and the longest, in seconds
	Only play between	Show hours, e.g. 17:00–22:00 (may span midnight)
	Volume / Mute	Applies at once
Videos	Upload videos	Pick files, or drag and drop them anywhere on the page (PC). Up to 8 GB each, with progress
	Checkbox	Puts the video in or out of the random rotation
	▶	Plays this video now. Works even when off or outside show hours, handy for testing in daylight
	✕	Deletes the video from the player
Log		The last 80 events: what played, pauses, uploads, errors

Shuffle rule: every video plays once before any video plays again, and the same video never plays twice in a row. The video folder is re-read before each video, so you can add files over the network or with scp while the player runs; sub-folders work too.

CLI

Every action has a flag, for KDE global shortcuts or a Stream Deck:

idus-hw-player --status | --next | --stop | --on | --off | --list | --version

From another machine, add --host and the password:

HW_PASSWORD=yourpassword idus-hw-player --host 192.168.1.50 --next

Configuration

Everything you change day to day is in the web GUI. The rest lives in ~/.local/share/idus-hw-player/idus-hw-player.env. Change it, then run sudo systemctl restart idus-hw-player.

Setting	Default	Meaning
HW_PASSWORD	set by the installer	Web GUI password (any user name)
HW_VIDEO_DIR	~/HW-videos	Where the videos live
HW_PORT	8080	Web GUI port
HW_BIND	0.0.0.0	Address to listen on
HW_MPV_ARGS	empty	Extra mpv arguments, e.g. "--audio-device=alsa/hdmi:CARD=vc4hdmi0,DEV=0"

App, icon, settings and env file live together in ~/.local/share/idus-hw-player, so one folder backup captures everything except the videos.

Tips for the window effect

• Use the window versions of AtmosFX-style videos (black background). Black stays see-through on the screen, so the ghosts float in the room.
• Rear projection works best: a translucent projection screen on the inside of the window, the projector in the room behind it, a dark room.
• Hide the boot text that shows before the player starts: sudo systemctl disable getty@tty1 (you then log in over SSH only).

Notes & caveats

• Security: the web GUI needs the password, and rejects commands sent from other web pages. It is plain http, though, so don't open the port to the internet. To control it from outside your home, use a VPN such as WireGuard or Tailscale.
• No picture, or the log says mpv exited right away: make sure no desktop is running (systemctl get-default should say multi-user.target) and reboot. Still nothing? Try HW_MPV_ARGS="--vo=drm".
• No sound: list the audio devices with mpv --audio-device=help and put the right one in HW_MPV_ARGS.
• Choppy video: re-encode to 720p before uploading: ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf scale=-2:720 -c:v libx264 -crf 22 -c:a copy out-720p.mp4
• Live log on the Pi: journalctl -u idus-hw-player -f
• The player ships no videos. Not affiliated with AtmosFX.

Uninstall

sudo systemctl disable --now idus-hw-player
sudo rm -f /etc/systemd/system/idus-hw-player.service && sudo systemctl daemon-reload
rm -f  ~/.local/bin/idus-hw-player
rm -rf ~/.local/share/idus-hw-player

Your videos in ~/HW-videos are left alone.

Support

Made by Idus. If this made your Halloween a little spookier, buy me a coffee:

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

o7