[chbot] Suggestions for starting point for MPG decoder with touchscreen

[Mark Atherton]

Hello all,

I am contemplating building a small unit that can display H.264 video 
from a remote IP cam (TP Link NC450) on a 5” touchscreen LCD.

Video will be displayed full-screen with out any decorative borders. 
Overlayed on the video will be six touchscreen buttons, each being 50% 
opacity, so not completely blocking out the video below.

Each buttons will each send out a message over a previously connected 
TCP pipe to a control device on the same network segment as the IP cam.

Neither the LCD nor the controller require any housing, I plan to 
package and integrate myself.

Hardware:
The controller needs to be a popular device with lots of community 
support; the Raspberry Pi seems the obvious choice.

I have some older PIs kicking around with the K4P4G324EB CPU. These look 
like B rev 2, possibly with 4GB RAM.

I have no issue with using 10 year old hardware, is there any compelling 
reason to buy a newer PI ?

Does the PI B R2 have an H.264 decode engine which can run license free ?

Software:
I assume that someone else will have already built a project similar to 
that described, any pointers please.

Failing that, what libraries would you use to support H.264 decode, and 
variable-opacity button management ?

Thanks,
Mark