Raspbmc

yllw.ldbttr

I picked up a Raspberry Pi a couple of weeks ago and only finally got around to throwing Raspbmc (XBMC) on it at the weekend.


The Raspberry Pi was 25 odd, tenner for an SD card, 12 for the case, I had a charger lying around. Remote control via iPhone/ android app.
Had it up and running in ten minutes, was very simple.

www.raspbmc.com/

I was considering buying another Boxee Box (although that now looks like a dead platform) but this is a great cheap alternative. No issues with lag, played streaming content without any problems at all, played local content without any buffering/ lag up to 8 GB MKVs, seemed to cause issues with anything bigger than that.

A few pics below.

MiniNukinfuts

I did the same, but I get terrible playback issues, It's choppy for playing any type of content, be it a 1GB avi file or a 8GB mkv. I'm guessing i'd have to reinstall raspbmc onto my sd card to fix this.

Good for a project or messing around with, but unfortunately not powerful enough to be classed as a decent HTPC. Unless you have very basic video requirements.

Boxee Box has its own issues and I wouldn't recommend it any more but from a playback perspective its in a different league.

yllw.ldbttr

Deleted User wrote: »

Good for a project or messing around with, but unfortunately not powerful enough to be classed as a decent HTPC. Unless you have very basic video requirements.

Boxee Box has its own issues and I wouldn't recommend it any more but from a playback perspective its in a different league.

Agree to an extent, but lots of people don't want or need playback of local HD content, they just want a cheap and easy streaming device. This will do the trick for some of them.

There might be life in the oul Boxee Box yet though, especially now that the device has been rooted. We may see XBMC on it in the future at some point.

PogMoThoin

The Boxee Box has been rooted alright but the chipset it contains is a closed platform meaning it's most likely not going to attract the XBMC team, it's too difficult to work on.

Mossy

yllw.ldbttr wrote: »

The Raspberry Pi was 25 odd...

Retail price seems to be £34 sterling (select "Order Now" then choose Ireland).

Where'd you get one for 25 odd? Linky please!

Basq

MiniNukinfuts wrote: »

I did the same, but I get terrible playback issues, It's choppy for playing any type of content, be it a 1GB avi file or a 8GB mkv. I'm guessing i'd have to reinstall raspbmc onto my sd card to fix this.

What class SD card you use? Might be better off with a Class 10.

I ordered a Raspberry Pi about 3 weeks ago from Radionics but has got an expected despatch date within 18 weeks so might be in for quite a wait.

MiniNukinfuts

Basq wrote: »

What class SD card you use? Might be better off with a Class 10.

I ordered a Raspberry Pi about 3 weeks ago from Radionics but has got an expected despatch date within 18 weeks so might be in for quite a wait.

Yup, it's a class 10, that was the reason I bought the C10 for. Maybe i'd be just better off just installing debian and running VLC off it.

johnybean

Sorry for hijacking this thread but I was wondering if a raspberry pi with raspbmc would be able to play low rate 1080's (yifi torrents) and also be able to stream from xbmc add ons such as channel 1 etc?
Also, I have a 1tb portable hard drive which is powered through the usb connection but I don't think this will work with the pi, am I right?

MiniNukinfuts

johnybean wrote: »

Sorry for hijacking this thread but I was wondering if a raspberry pi with raspbmc would be able to play low rate 1080's (yifi torrents) and also be able to stream from xbmc add ons such as channel 1 etc?
Also, I have a 1tb portable hard drive which is powered through the usb connection but I don't think this will work with the pi, am I right?

Not 100% on the 1080p playback, but i'm guessing it'll be chopping for you. I played low rate/ low quality .avi's and it was choppy for me.

To get the 1TB HDD working, you'll need to buy a powered USB hub, such as this one

johnybean

Thanks for the reply. Thats a pity about the playback, might have a look through the xbmc forums ans see can I get confirmation. was hoping to set up a NAS and use a couple of pi's to access the files stored on it but I want to get all my ducks in a row before ordering anything.

MiniNukinfuts

johnybean wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. Thats a pity about the playback, might have a look through the xbmc forums ans see can I get confirmation. was hoping to set up a NAS and use a couple of pi's to access the files stored on it but I want to get all my ducks in a row before ordering anything.

I read that people have had better results by just installing Raspbian “wheezy” and then installing VLC onto that. You could try that

johnybean

I might give that a go if raspbmc doesn't work, was kind of hoping to get a small, cheap xbmc box but if the pi does the job through your method then I can't really complain when you consider the price.

vibe666

Basq wrote: »

What class SD card you use? Might be better off with a Class 10.

I ordered a Raspberry Pi about 3 weeks ago from Radionics but has got an expected despatch date within 18 weeks so might be in for quite a wait.

i think the quickest place to ship are farnell at the minute, someone on another thread had an order within a week, although their website is saying expected delivery within 3 weeks at the moment.

i had my initial pre-order completed and delivered a couple of weeks ago after months waiting (end of may was my initial expression of interest), but i was still waiting for my order from RS (completed the same day as my farnell order) so i cancelled it the other day.

i have one to play with for now though, so i'm happy. just a shame as I'd ordered 2 cases and PSU's etc. from RS as well.

i might re-order the 2nd one now from farnell and get a couple of cases etc. as well.

i tried raspbmc and openelec on my RPi, but both faile to live up to my expectations and neither can compete with my current media centre current running on an acer revo r3610, so it won't be replacing that any time soon.

johnybean

Vibe, when you say you were disappointed, do you think the pi would be able to meet my requirement outlined above?

vibe666

johnybean wrote: »

Vibe, when you say you were disappointed, do you think the pi would be able to meet my requirement outlined above?

i think it's going to come down to how your files are encoded and what your network is like.

i'm a little stunted at the moment as i'm running it through 200mbps homeplugs in our new house as it's pretty big (and rented) and running ethernet cables without cutting or drilling too many holes is going to be a headache that i've not been willing to have just yet, so i don't know if the jerkiness i saw was because of network issues or the lack of power in the RPi.

mainly i was disappointed because my media centre experience has grown with XBMC from way back in the old original Xbox days at least 8 years ago, and i've come to expect a certain level of performance since i migrated to a decent (at the time) specced PC to run it.

I've also gotten used to having a full blown windows install on my telly as a result of having the PC connected to it and going back to just having XBMC without all the extra bells and whistles provided by windows on a 40" LCD is a bit of a let down in itself.

i dare say that if i wasn't used to having XBMC running within windows (plus OpenELEC and XBMC Live for testing) doing everything i want it to and also having Windows on the TV at my fingertips via the Revo, having RaspBMC or OpenELEC running on the RPi would be a lot more satisfying as a user experience.

johnybean

vibe666 wrote: »

i think it's going to come down to how your files are encoded and what your network is like.

i'm a little stunted at the moment as i'm running it through 200mbps homeplugs in our new house as it's pretty big (and rented) and running ethernet cables without cutting or drilling too many holes is going to be a headache that i've not been willing to have just yet, so i don't know if the jerkiness i saw was because of network issues or the lack of power in the RPi.

mainly i was disappointed because my media centre experience has grown with XBMC from way back in the old original Xbox days at least 8 years ago, and i've come to expect a certain level of performance since i migrated to a decent (at the time) specced PC to run it.

I've also gotten used to having a full blown windows install on my telly as a result of having the PC connected to it and going back to just having XBMC without all the extra bells and whistles provided by windows on a 40" LCD is a bit of a let down in itself.

i dare say that if i wasn't used to having XBMC running within windows (plus OpenELEC and XBMC Live for testing) doing everything i want it to and also having Windows on the TV at my fingertips via the Revo, having RaspBMC or OpenELEC running on the RPi would be a lot more satisfying as a user experience.

Thnaks for the detailed response vibe. I think what I will be doing is building a NAS server myself and hardwiring the house with cat5/6 to all rooms. I would only be doing a small amount of browsing but I have set up advanced launcher in my existing xbmc set up to launch firefox so I think I might be ok with the pi. Do you know if any of the plugins like chanel 1 work on the pi?

vibe666

i haven't specifically tested any plugins myself, but quite a few plugins work in openelec (altho not all) running on a pc. not sure about raspbmc, but i'd imagine it would be closer to the live linux version of xbmc which was pretty good for plugins afaik.

johnybean

vibe666 wrote: »

i haven't specifically tested any plugins myself, but quite a few plugins work in openelec (altho not all) running on a pc. not sure about raspbmc, but i'd imagine it would be closer to the live linux version of xbmc which was pretty good for plugins afaik.

Thanks again for the reply, think ill just bite the bullet and go for the pi and see how I get on.

vibe666

johnybean wrote: »

Thanks again for the reply, think ill just bite the bullet and go for the pi and see how I get on.

personally, i think it's too cheap not to, just for the craic if nothing else.

i just ordered a 2nd one to have a play with and i haven't had much time to play with the first one yet.

i'm thinking a nice 7" touchscreen plus a usb ssd for storage and wifi/3g/gps would make a pretty decent CarPC.

johnybean

vibe666 wrote: »

personally, i think it's too cheap not to, just for the craic if nothing else.

i just ordered a 2nd one to have a play with and i haven't had much time to play with the first one yet.

i'm thinking a nice 7" touchscreen plus a usb ssd for storage and wifi/3g/gps would make a pretty decent CarPC.

Now that would be sweet!!
I was doing a bit of looking around on the raspbmc forum and i dont think browser will be an option http://forum.stmlabs.com/showthread.php?tid=1452
Still, I can get a pretty nifty server set up for about €400 and add a few pi's in each room and your laughin. I ordered mine yesterday and hope to have it in about 3 weeks. did you get your first one off Farnell?

vibe666

yep, got the first one off farnell. ordered off RS at the same time and that wasn't going to ship until sometime next month, so i cancelled and ordered the 2nd one off farnell too yesterday.

johnybean

vibe666 wrote: »

yep, got the first one off farnell. ordered off RS at the same time and that wasn't going to ship until sometime next month, so i cancelled and ordered the 2nd one off farnell too yesterday.

hopefully they will ship shortly and I can get to tinkerin' :D

Zilog

Been keeping an eye to see how the Raspberry's been developing as a media player.
Getting really interesting now that MPEG-2 decoding is released:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1839

CEC control also looks cool!

M00lers

After the disappointment of my first experience with raspbmc (RC3) which was unusable, RC4 with an overclock is very good. Plays back all my files without issue.XBian is also very good, GUI seems smoother and more responsive and AirPlay works straight away which is a nice touch.

vibe666

moolers2000 wrote: »

After the disappointment of my first experience with raspbmc (RC3) which was unusable, RC4 with an overclock is very good. Plays back all my files without issue.XBian is also very good, GUI seems smoother and more responsive and AirPlay works straight away which is a nice touch.

cool, might have to give it another look.

funkhouser

I'd surprised at people expecting so much from a cheap hobbyist's device. I intend to use one as an ultra low powered second HTPC and a second for anything and everything I can think of.

I've ordered from Farnell, it's more expensive than the other site but they're quoting only 3 weeks rather than 13.

I'm looking for a case. The site quoting 13 weeks had cheap cases but Amazon bought cases will run to almost 20 euro. Anyone bought one on EBay?

Also, how realistic is the quoted 3 week lead time?

vibe666

i got one of these cases and it arrived within a week.

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/330781025500?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649#ht_1034wt_1398

i also got an email from RS today about my order with them (even tho i've already cancelled it) that i pre-ordered at the end of june:

Dear customer,

Thanks again for your Raspberry Pi order, reference number 1010133902. We are busy working with the suppliers who provide components for your Raspberry Pi to ensure you receive your order as quickly as possible.

Since receiving your order, we have been advised that our next batch of approximately 40,000 Raspberry Pi’s will now be arriving during September, with further deliveries expected in October. This delay is due to the very high level of demand on the core Raspberry Pi processor chip. Unfortunately, this means that your order could be delayed by up to 4 weeks, although we are trying to reduce this as much as possible. We have updated the delivery schedule displayed in our FAQ’s and on the Raspberry Pi forum. As soon as we receive confirmation of any improvements from our manufacturers, we will advise you.

Please accept our apologies for this delay and be assured we are doing everything we can to ensure the fastest possible delivery of your Raspberry Pi.

Yours sincerely,

RS Components & Allied Electronics

even happier i cancelled and re-ordered with farnell now.

FastFullBack

vibe666 wrote: »

yep, got the first one off farnell. ordered off RS at the same time and that wasn't going to ship until sometime next month, so i cancelled and ordered the 2nd one off farnell too yesterday.

Do you have a link for where you purchased this in farnell? I have tried but when I go to submit order I'm put through to an export site with links for different countries but with no option for Ireland or the UK.

johnybean

FastFullBack wrote: »

Do you have a link for where you purchased this in farnell? I have tried but when I go to submit order I'm put through to an export site with links for different countries but with no option for Ireland or the UK.

https://export.farnell.com/jsp/raspi/purchase.jsp?&country=IE

If you follow the link and click order now button and choose ireland from the drop down list and choose to purchase as a consumer or business. Prices are in sterling (£34.02 at the mo). They are quoting 3 weeks waiting period but I ordered last week and recieved confirmation that my order had been shipped yesterday.
Happy days :D:D:D

FastFullBack

johnybean wrote: »

https://export.farnell.com/jsp/raspi/purchase.jsp?&country=IE

If you follow the link and click order now button and choose ireland from the drop down list and choose to purchase as a consumer or business. Prices are in sterling (£34.02 at the mo). They are quoting 3 weeks waiting period but I ordered last week and recieved confirmation that my order had been shipped yesterday.
Happy days :D:D:D

Thanks. That's exactly what I did. I filled in credit card and everything and hit submit order, after that I got no confirmation just onto another page with a list of countries and links to order for those countries.
Might have been some issue with Chrome. Will try IE.