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First of all, you need to install an OS into the raspberry. If you are going to use it only as media player, then your best best is OSMC.
Just download the installer. Insert your SD card on your computer, install the OSMC OS into it, and then put the card in your raspberry and start it.
When you have your Pi ready to go, with OSMC running, the easiest way to play from USB drive is to just connect it to one USB, and then select "video" --> "files" (iirc) and then browse to your USB drive and select your media files.
Now, that's a very simple and boring to do it. Wouldn't it be far more convenient to have a NAS with all your files, and just connect your pi as a remote media player?
I started like you, and now I have a NAS with emby server, and my Pi uses OSMC to remotely connect to my server and play the media. When I go to a hotel or another house, I just take the pi, and connect it to the wifi. It just search for my the NAS on my house, and I have access to all my media over internet, no need for USB drives :)
Your best bet is going to be Kodi. And it will work great, so don't be disheartened just yet!
There's a few different Kodi "flavours" for the Pi - the main ones that I know of (and have used) are OpenELEC and OSMC (formerly RaspBMC, I believe).
OpenELEC is (or, was when I last used it anyway) an easy-to-use OTB Kodi install. OSMC seems to need a little more setup, but has a more user-friendly UI.
If you're comfortable with flashing SD cards, try them both and see what you prefer. Ultimately, they're both based on the same software (Kodi).
As for streaming, YouTube is easy to set up and works great, especially if you've got a phone/laptop to "push" videos from. If you're in the UK, there's iPlayer, ITV and All4 apps available, not sure about other countries.
Flash and Silverlight are - as far as I know - not supported on the Pi. I'm not sure Silverlight is supported on anything other than Windows, to be honest. I've tried to install it - unsuccessfully - on Mac a few times but ultimately given up.
There's plenty of other streaming services available, but some of them fall into a legal grey area, so I won't mention any of those here.
Shout if you need any help/advice :)
If you don't have a media center, I'd highly recommend putting https://osmc.tv/ on your pi and connecting it to your TV. In half an hour, you can make your TV a really good smart TV. Also, you should check out /r/raspberry_pi . Lots of great ideas there.
Je kan voor onder de vijftig euro een Raspberry Pi kopen, een mini-computertje dat je als mediacenter kan gebruiken (dus ook naartoe streamcasten). Je koopt er Rii Mini bij want dat is handig. Op die Pi zet je b.v. OSMC op en dan Kodi, dan de NPO app installeren en je kan Uitzending Gemist kijken (en andere apps voor meer video- en muziekkanalen).
As far as I know OSMC isn't available on NOOBS. So you're gonna have to Download the .img file from the OSMC website and then write it to your SD card
I'm running OSMC on a Pi2 at the moment. Kodi runs great and Ariplay is working fine. I haven't stress-tested it yet. I still want to know how video playback will look like while downloading torrents.
Raspberry A+ isn't a good purchase in your situation seeing you'd want the ports that come with the B+. But even the B+ isn't worth the money currently in my opinion. The RasPi2 is just soo much faster for a couple dollars more.
Unlike OpenELEC (a competitor of OSMC) you can use apt-get to install other Linux programs like Transmission. I think OSMC is your best bet.
OSMC is just an os that kodi can run on, similar to libreELEC, that has a nice looking skin.
The main advantage over something like libreELEC from my point of view is that it's based on debian, so you can install more or less anything on it.
For example you can plug a DVB-T/C dongle (They even sell one) into your device and install TVHeadend to get free live TV with EPG.
I bought a Vero4K a few months ago and I couldn't be happier. 4k + HDR + all codecs supported you could wish for. It's an open source kodi box more or less but the hardware is really great. I can recommend it. Works well over Wifi AC 5ghz, even for 4k content, I don't even have it hooked via lan cable.
In my experience, one of the cool aspects of learning on a Raspberry Pi is that it doesn't really matter if you mess up. You just re-image your SD card. I may be oversimplifying but the point is that that learning on a Pi is great. The risk is lower than on other devices. Pis were designed for teaching. So don't worry too much.
My first Pi project was pretty simple. I made a media centre (OSMC, I think) and then added some add-ons including plexbmc. I also tried NOOBS to install Raspbian.
I'm using OSMC as my home media server on a Pi 3, and so far it has only choked on one video file. I've only been running it for a few weeks, but I've watched dozens of moves, shows, etc.
Consider using OSMC. It is based on Debian but has a very appliance-like look and feel where you can set up remotes via a gui and apply updates automatically. You can add Live TV to it by using one of the PVR addons There is also a Retropi addon for it which can turn it into a full emulation station experience.
Good luck.
Sulla wiki di OSMC link consigliano almeno un model 2. Non so quale OS userai alla fine ma se il tuo target è fare un media center questi requisiti dovrebbero essere corretti. Se hai bisogno di fare transcoding evita Raspberry (oppure riconverti tutti i tuoi media utilizzando dei codec supportati da tutti i tuoi dispositivi)
The thing with Linux is that you can easily do it step by step. I would do the 'access from outside' to last, as that will require some serious security knowledge. I do not say that because of you. I do not care if your machine gets hacked and all your d*ck pics get posted online. What I care about is not receiving extra spam, because your machine was insecure.
The Pi is to learn. So learn. If all you want is a NAS/Cloud server, buy one that does that. The price might sound expensive compared to a RPi, but understand that the RPi only does part of the job, so you need some sort of storage. So would still need to buy a NAS for that storage.
So play and learn. Use https://osmc.tv/ and/or https://libreelec.tv/ and break things often. Reinstall and break it again a few times. Your data will be lost a few times in the process of learning, so it should be kept elsewhere.
Then you learn you can do PiHole and next you are trying other things. Soon you will understand why there is no need to leave your moms basement.
The thing is that you can not break that much, so just delve in. And if you are not willing to learn (no shame there): buy a solution that is better for you.
First if you want a "Kodi box" I would suggest the OSMC distro (https://osmc.tv/). For the VPN, I use OpenVPN running as a service. I don't have any guide to recommend. I just searched the web and followed some instruction. OSMC is Debian based so you don't have to search for OSMC-specific instructions.
What's wrong with raspberry pi?
My pref is archarm but installing osmc is slick and the fastest way out of the gates. https://osmc.tv/
Late edit: Edited amazon link, I missed the pound sign.
è una distro mediacenter studiato per raspberry pi. è molto discusso (in positivo) di recente, nasce da Raspbmc e Crystalbuntu.
Non arriva solo per PI3, ma anche per apple tv ed un loro device che si chiama Vero, https://osmc.tv/vero/, molto carino a mio parere.
I actually found that for the Raspberry Pi, OSMC seems to work a bit better: https://osmc.tv/ - the image seems more tuned for the RasPi, and installation is easier.
It also works better with their official remote: https://osmc.tv/store/product/osmc-remote-control/ (Adafruit sells them too) which is quite a nice remote :) . The remote is just a keyboard to the computer though...
https://www.roku.com/products/roku-3
Get one of those, then use a VPN solution back to the States for all the movies/tv shows you want.
Go download that image, burn it to a SD card, throw it into a Raspberry Pi II. get a decent USB remote (or if you have a newer tv you can control it through HDMI, aka HDMI-CEC)
You can get a cheap USB HD and keep all of your "digital backups" on it and have them available to play anytime you need to "restore".
I'm not doing anything too fancy with mine. I currently use my overclocked B+ as a media center via OSMC.
http://i.imgur.com/ifDqiv9.jpg
I plan on eventually switching it with a Pi 2 and using my B+ for another project.
If power isn't an issue, try a reinstall of Raspian or another OS, like the very newbie friendly OSMC. Try the new OS first, that might resolve the other problems without you doing anything.
The rainbow square is an undervoltage warning, a Pi 2 needs at least 2a. TV usb ports only give out 0.5a.
I've only used a Pi 1 and that couldn't handle any screensavers, so I stuck with black in the screensavers setting.
Airplay needs to be turn on in settings > services > airplay. Settings level: expert.
The overscan issue can be fixed in settings > system > video output > video calibration.
The issue with sound and no video may be because you don't have the mpeg2 licences, this is the link to buy them. It's best if you try the other OS first to confirm if this is the case.
Their main download page is supposed to download an installer that makes it easy to install the system on the SD card, kinda like an install wizard. If you want the actual images, you can find them here.
Am I on the wrong page: https://osmc.tv/download/
I'm confused about where to download the image/iso. Their download page doesn't appear to have anything to download other than the EOL image.
Am I missing something?
Kodi is used in OSMC. Kodi is just the application, OSMC is the operating system. You cannot install Kodi on anything without an operating system.
You can learn more here: https://osmc.tv/help/wiki/kodi-osmc
Sam
RaspBMC is becoming/has become OSMC.
All three are based on Kodi, so they will all be pretty similar. I am currently using OpenELEC and it has worked fine for what I use it for.
I don't know what country you're from, but if your country uses the DVB-T/T2 standard (like the UK), a safe choice would be the official OSMC dongle. I personally use an August DVB-T210, which does require a firmware installation in order to work.
It’s definitely misleading, but not a surprising business decision. Uncompressed audio isn’t going to work for streaming for most people, so the only way you’d have that use case would be to either burn your own Blu-Ray videos or download them, neither of which adds any revenue for Apple or their app partners. I have read that there may be licensing fees to even pass through Dolby TrueHD and/or DTS-HD MA, so it would make sense that Apple doesn’t want to pay those fees to provide a minority of its users the ability to enjoy content for which it receives no revenue.
I just resigned myself to that fact and bought a Vero 4K+ and set it up with PlexKodiConnect for my TrueHD and DTS-HD MA content. It sucks to have to purchase and switch between two boxes, but it is what it is. I am not sure exactly how OSMC gets around any licensing fees, but it might just boil down to them being distributed, open source, and small enough not to end up on anyone’s legal radar (yet).
Ideally, a solution will emerge that permits transcoding TrueHD/Atmos and DTS-HD MA/DTS:X to EAC-3, which should not only permit object-based audio Blu-Ray rips to play on Apple TV, but also greatly reduce the size of the files.
Hi,
You can use that remote on Vero 4K+, as it has a built in IR receiver. The profile for the 360 remote is built right in to My OSMC and we use that for testing LIRC regularly.
All OSMC remote buttons are re-programmable, and there are options to map long press buttons to handle this sort of thing. See https://osmc.tv/wiki/general/osmc-remote---long-press-keymap-guide/.
Any questions, let me know
Cheers
Sam
Just flash the OSMC image to a cf card and put it in a pi 3+ pr better and you will be getting a set top like experience fully compatible with kodi.
If you want to do 4K streaming though (and the Pi4 doesn't currently handle that well) consider getting a dedicated OSMC Vero 4K+ box.
No HD without opening it to replace the Wi-Fi card with a crystal hd video decoder: https://osmc.tv/wiki/apple-tv/how-to-install-the-crystalhd-video-decoder/
Probably not worth the effort today but it was fun to mess around with over a decade ago.
Not at all! Once you put the board inside the box, it will be less intimidating. It's just another box with 4 USB slots, microSD card slot, audio jack, and power port just like any TV box.
Get yourself a good microSD card, download OSMC to your main PC and then follow the instructions to install on your microSD card. Insert the microSD to raspberry pi, power on and then follow the instructions to connect to the network. You can use your phone as remote by downloading Yatse app or use your TV remote.
You can cast Youtube videos from your phone to your TV or download add-ons (just like downloading android apps) to your OSMC that will let you stream videos. There's a huge community that shares step-by-step instructions of their add-ons and their setup, there are so many possibilities! But recently, I'm keeping a simple setup - just the Netflix add-on and then I cast everything from the phone using Tubio and Yatse apps.
If one day you don't find it useful anymore, there are many raspberry pi projects you can build from it or at least you can resell it for others to build their projects on - like turning it into Google Home.
Please can you clarify what has slowed down? Playback? Browsing?
​
See https://osmc.tv/wiki/general/how-to-submit-a-useful-support-request/
Depending on what other things you are wanting to use the pi for, the Kodi focused disrto OSMC, can use the apt system to install things.
> OSMC https://osmc.tv/wiki/general/installing-packages-via-apt/
Openelec, and the spinoff LibreElec i think do not have that same flexibility.
> OpenELEC (Open Embedded Linux Entertainment Center) is a small Linux based Just Enough Operating System (JeOS) built from scratch as a platform to turn your computer into a Kodi media center .
> LibreELEC is a 'Just enough OS' Linux distribution for running Kodi. It is efficient with a tiny disk and memory footprint, and provides cutting edge hardware support to deliver a set-top box Kodi experience
As for the other issues, i cant say i ever tried to do kodi over vnc. or anything weird like that. Sorry.
Vero 4K, with Plex for Kodi. You will get full audio codec support, 4K HDR. Mine is set to load Plex for Kodi at boot, so it will do exactly what you're asking. The developer is extremely responsive if you have any issues with your setup. I'd also recommend getting a Gigabit - USB 3.0 adapter, since the Vero only comes with Fast Ethernet (opposed to Gigabit). This is an intentional design decision btw.
You can possibly do this with Kodi...? I've used it for similar things, like watching the Olympics or other sports, but don't know specifically if it works with the networks you mention.
OSMC is decent distro that that's pretty easy to get setup with KODI and everything you need ready to go.
Here's how to setup Acestream using Kodi on a RaspberryPi (2/3):
- Install OSMC on the SD Card. It's a free and open source Media Center.
- Install the Kodil Repo. You can also install the Stream Army or the GenTec Repos as they all have the addon required.
- From the Addon section, search for "Plexus" addon and install it (latest version for now is 0.1.7)
- Run the Plexus addon, and confirm it's for the RPi 2/3. The addon will then automatically download and install the Sopcast and Acestream engines for you.
- Install the Sparkle addon (credit to u/kimuratakuya for creating it). This addon searches through all streaming subreddits for acestream links.
- Browse r/soccerstreams and choose the acestream link you want.
- Enjoy!
Kodi can do YouTube - there is a YouTube add-on in the default Kodi add-on repository.
The latest version 18 (in testing?) is supposed to have support for Netflix I recall reading. some of the Kodi distros for the pi may have this version.
hbogo - no idea.
why would you need a VPN to use the legal services?
now the other "not exactly legal" addons I would suggest avoiding. I never use them.
Stick to the addons in the default official repository.
Of course kodis main feature is it's ability to play local media files. this is the original idea behind kodi, and sadly is overshadowed by people thinking Kodi is all about 'pirate streams'. I see people who do not realize Kodi can play files from the hard drive.
good luck.
update - osmc is testing Kodi 18.
> OSMC's April update is ready with a wide range of improvements to keep your OSMC device running in tip-top shape. Team Kodi have now announced that they have started the official alpha release cycle for Kodi v18 (Leia). Test builds for Raspberry Pi and Vero devices are available. https://osmc.tv/blog/
I recently bought a Vero 4k from osmc.tv and it's pretty awesome. It handles H265 HDR 4k without any problems (and anything else too). If you don't want to setup everything by yourself, this is the way to go!
From what I can understand is that you tried to install OSMC through your Macbook onto the microSD card? I might be wrong but you might have damaged your card. To install OSMC, you needed to insert your microSD into the RPi, boot it up and then install OMSC as per the instructions on the download page (https://osmc.tv/download/) under Linux then Raspian.
I have no experience with the Zero W, but I did run kodi on a Pi 1 (which is slower from what I can find).
The version which worked best for me was osmc, although the UI was very laggy making it very annoying to use. Playback was fine though, so I just used a smartphone app to control it directly.
Yes. What you need to reproduce my setup is:
- A Rpi3 (or 2 with wired controller)
- A compatible controller (tested with XBox Wired or Wii U Wireless)
- OSMC for Rpi
- Moonlight for OSMC
- Luna
- Geforce experience running on your PC (I run Win10, don't know if that's relevant)
Install OSMC, then Moonlight using the repo. Then move the luna zip file to your Rpi and install it as an addon from zip.
Plug/Pair your controller, launch Luna, follow the steps to pair your Rpi with Geforce experience (it will be seen as an Nvidia Shield).
From here, you can stream your PC games to your Rpi and play with the controller.
Since you are starting it might be best to just use OSMC or OpenELEC. More or less the same deal and they have instructions (copy stuff to sd card and you are done). These things have an interface that.. might annoy you at first, but it's not bad. Also, you should be able to control this stuff with your tv remote.
If you want to reinstall, go to osmc.tv/download, and grab an image or use the Windows / Linux / Mac installer. You just need a micro SD card. More info at https://osmc.tv/wiki/vero-4k/reinstalling-osmc/.
For web browser support, if you post here: https://discourse.osmc.tv/t/testing-x11-simple-desktop-chromium-web-browser-in-a-simple-installer/16846, and ask for a Vero 4K build, the poster will send you some instructions. He will also post a tutorial for Vero 4K in the future when it has more testing.
Retrogaming is already available but requires running experimental builds (Kodi v18). See https://discourse.osmc.tv/t/testing-kodi-18-leia-builds-for-vero-4k/23059. It's for the brave however. But the good news is you can reinstall at any time.
Any questions, let us know on our forums (I check that a lot more than Reddit)
Sam
Some relatively easy starting projects that would actually be useful are an HTPC or a security camera (perhaps for the front door). For the HTPC checkout OSMC, for a camera checkout MotionEyeOS.
Since you're 15 you may not have a lot of money for projects, so it may be worth trying to get your parents to pay ~$50 or so if you can justify it (the camera will keep us safe, we can watch movies and TV on the HTPC... etc.) or if they feel like funding your hobby.
If you don't know a lot about Linux you'll probably have a bit of a rough time getting things to work how you want but there are loads of community resources available, such as /r/Linux4Noobs.
Let me know if I wasn't clear on anything or you need more information.
It's experimental. If you're not sure about this, you might not want to proceed. More info here: https://discourse.osmc.tv/t/testing-bluetooth-audio-streaming-a2dp/9116.
The internal adapter may stutter / drop out a lot, which is why we recommend a good external adapter such as https://osmc.tv/store/product/bluetooth-dongle/.
Whats everyone watching?
I watched The Great Wall last night. Not much story but the action was great.
Working my way the The Trip to Spain. Enjoyable.
Powerless, Crashing, Stan Lees Lucky Man, Decline and Fall.
Almost time to go drink beer and watch them.
Well I like OSMC on my Rpi3 so much I went and bought one of these
Finally, Ive found a media player that will be a bit future proof.
The full specs are on the web page at https://osmc.tv/vero.
We deliberately choose 100Mbps, as 1000Mbps (GigE) devices often have problems with consumer network equipment and you run in to a lot of problems like Flow Control. As a NAS, you'd still be able to stream 2x Full HD videos or a 4K UHD video.
I would definitely go with one of those small computers running Ubuntu. Set that one up with all the download and indexing tools you need and have it download whatever to a NAS. As for the viewing, i would suggest looking at something separate like a Raspberry Pi 3 running something like OSMC (https://osmc.tv/wiki/general/starting-and-stopping-kodi/) and stick that behind your television and let that grab all the stuff from your NAS.
It doesn't take much, assuming you already have some other computer. Basically it's just the pi itself, a sim card (it uses that instead of a hard drive), a power cable (it takes standard usb power in). You also need a hdmi cable and monitor/tv that can take hdmi in and a usb keyboard and mouse (not strictly necessary but life is much easier if you have them for set up). That, and a way to copy the OS onto the sim card.
But it's all really easy to do, there are tutorials at https://www.raspberrypi.org/ that are easy enough to use that my father managed to set up his own media server (and the man is nearly 70 and not exactly tech savvy, he's one of those people who really should not know about text messaging for example).
Once you get it running and connected to wifi, you can make it "headless" (no monitor, no keyboard, no mouse) and just use vnc to bring up its desktop "in a window" on your computer. That's how I use mine, I have mathematica on there and set it running, then check back in later for results.
The pi's also make a fantastic media server if you're into that (use https://osmc.tv/ if that's your plan rather than trying to build one on top of the standard OS).
Not at all. OSMC has a full guide on their site: https://osmc.tv/download/
Just download the one for the pi zero. Now, getting it onto your microsd card, I used Pi Filler because I'm on a mac. Windows users tend to use win32 disk imager
Once you have the osmc image flashed onto the microSD card, just hook up the zero to your screen and plug it in; the osmc installer will do the rest if you follow the on-screen instructions.
By the way, you should join us over on /r/raspberry_pi . There are a lot of knowledgeable people there who can give you even better advice.
There are official ones at https://osmc.tv/store which are guaranteed to work. We will support these for a minimum of 5 yrs.
Otherwise, most adapters should work out of the box, and I am always interested in adding support for more adapters. Unfortunately wireless on Linux is in a bit of a state, so while I can usually add support to OSMC, I cannot always maintain the support as we update the kernel for better hardware compatibility quite regularly.
Cheers
If you like to run kodi on a htpc and cast "stuff" to it, the standard way is via upnp or airplay. Upnp imho is more universal and avaiable for not only android smartphones and tablets but also windows pcs,laptops,.. as shown by the chrome extension above. Airplay is kind of apple exclusive and has the advantage of being able to completely mirror your iphone,ipad,mac,.. to your kodi htpc.
Setting up upnp and these kodi addons is really simple and quick. Concerning Netflix: With the new Kodi version Krypton (currenty in beta 1) it will be possible to playback netflix streams, also amazon prime video and a couple more drm streams from other sites.
Concerning a htpc running kodi (and or android) I can recommend the vero 2: https://osmc.tv/vero/ which now can also run android. You can switch between osmc/kodi (running on internal storage) and android (on a sdcard) easily. But at this time the android release is still in a early, unstable stage. Or you could grab a good old raspberry pi 3, also great device and imho it has the best price/performance ratio.
Kodi runs perfectly fine under plain Raspbian seems the Pi has enough power to do so. Over the years I have had several setups where I could play HD, DTS 3D movies without any problems, just with Kodi (XBMC) and Raspbian. Nevertheless there are optimisations possible and Kodi distro's like OpenELEC and OSMC have tried to get the best out of the Pi. OpenELEC is multi platform and have chopped at everything that is not nessecary, it offers not much of an OS. OSMC however is a full featured OS that offers everything we are used from Debian but also has an optimised Kodi implementation that updates automatically etc.
But, back to the subject at hand... Running kodi just for music alone is overkill fortunately in the other threads the alternatives are already mentioned.
osmc is basically a raspberry pi specific OS built to be Xbmc or kodi as an operating system.
I have a pi at my parent's house that I have running osmc to give them a local media center.
I've never flashed osmc I've always used the installer. https://osmc.tv/download/ download the windows installer and follow the on screen instructions. I have 3 instances of osmc running using the installer and they all work fine.
It downloads the required files so it's going to take a while but it's worked for me on many occasions.
https://osmc.tv/ osmc is the media player. It uses a Windows installer to setup the sd card. For rasbian etc you'll need win32diskimager to write the image files to your sd card.
4GB is the minimum but I would recommend at least 8GB
I use foobar2000 with rumianekk on the PC, but the player on the TV is OSMC running on a Raspberry Pi 2, which I use for the makeshift ambilight driving the two lightpacks behind the TV.
- OpenELEC or OSMC
- No. There are workarounds using PlayOn, but it will actually be a different computer connecting to Netflix.
- That's really up to you and what you consider entertainment. RetroPie is popular. So is using a Pi just for music. It's designed to help kids make things. You can make whatever you want. Media Center is just an obvious choice because its graphics chip is really good at decoding x264 at up to 40Mbps.
I got OSMC (link) running on my PI, Airplay and Popcorntime works great! also all other services i got on there.
The really cool thing is that i can control it with the remote of my TV via HDMI natively! All navigation, pause/play buttons work. pretty responsive too!
Happy cakeday!
Actually I meant OSMC, I run OSMC on my pi 24x7.
OSMC with add-ons like Genesis/Phoenix will give you pretty much all the content you want to see albeit from questionable sources. So it's your wish, but it only streams and if you're behind a VPN you'd be fine from getting caught.
Also, OSMC is pretty much like a top layer on a minimal linux distro and it runs just fine standalone, no server-client relationship here.
I do run a plex server on my PC and watch stuff either using the default smart TV interface (some TVs support that) or using Chromecast Plex app (before my CC broke). Works fine both ways.
The reason I was asking about Fire stick was I just wanted to know why people prefer it over Chromecast, turns out because of Prime/Netflix and other app integration which doesn't interest me as much.
You can read about and get OSMC here.
Yes. The actual music player part here is MPD. There are spotify and google music plugins for it. I dont know about pandora. The google music one is beta and has some issues, but it generally works.
The easiest approach here (since non-geekiness was the article's premise) is to just use Pi MusicBox instead of raspbian. Pi MusicBox works headless so you can just control it from your smartphone or a browser without any screen. If you have a screen like in the lifehacker guide, you can instead use something like OSMC, which is perhaps a bit more polished.
I believe OSMC uses aptitude for package management. I've been very pleased with xbian for the past few years but all my media is streamed from a storage server so perhaps I wouldn't have encountered the bugs you're referring to.
Ah, ok. That makes more sense now.
I wasn't sure what RPi you had and how you were writing the image to the SD card, so took a guess.
It seems odd that it is only effecting OpenELEC - do you know what version the image is (I think the latest is 5.0.6 and this is Kodi 14.2 RC)? I have this running on my RPi Model B and it works fine, no issues.
EDIT: Have you tried OSMC (another flavour of Kodi, formerly Raspbmc)?
When your Pi is running and connected to the net, you can plug in the Lightpack and install Hyperion.
Unfortunately it's not available as a one-click-solution yet, so you need to compile it on your own. Don't worry, there isn't much you have to do.
First you'll need access to the console. User name is osmc and password should be osmc, too.
If you're connected, you'll need to run a few commands:
Update your system: > sudo apt-get update
Install dependencies: > sudo apt-get install libqtcore4 libqtgui4 libqt4-network libusb-1.0-0 libprotobuf9 ca-certificates
Download the install script: > wget -Nhttps://raw.github.com/tvdzwan/hyperion/master/bin/install_hyperion.sh4
And start it: > sudo sh ./install_hyperion.sh
After that, you'll need to create your configuration on your PC and put the output file onto your Pi (per USB, network share, FTP, WinSCP or whatever). Put it into the /etc/ directory and restart.
Sorry for the wall of text, but I really need to go to sleep now. :P
Good luck with the setup. If you have any troubles you can't solve on your own I'll try to answer them when I find some time between work.
Buy a vero 4k. Buy an external usb storage. Put your movies on there. Plugin vero to tv, plugin storage to vero. Play any content offline. It supports any codec and 4k HDR etc without sweat. https://osmc.tv/vero/ They ship international free.
Better buy a vero 4k instead of a Xiaomi. Vero 4k can play any format and has play system already installed. Xiaomi are weak for big HDR or other files. Vero 4k also has their gui in multiple languages and you can do so much on the device. Just plugin your stick in your vero and play your content. You can read and order vero here https://osmc.tv/
I was going to mention OSMC - But it seems it no longer has (or had?) a Generic PC release. They do have a cool remote. :)
I thought Libreelec was about as minimal an os as you can get to run Kodi.
There is geexbox - but it has been discontinued. But should still work.
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=geexbox
Good Luck - theres not a lot out there it seems to pick from these days. Perhaps xbian may work.
https://www.techilife.com/a-complete-review-on-the-best-linux-distros-for-kodi/
Pi 4 2Gb should work nicely. There’s really no need to invest in more RAM if you only run Kodi and RetroPie on it.
I use Vero 4K which also has 2Gb of RAM and works great. Pi can be fun to play with of course, but comes at extra cost with power brick, SD card and housing. Not to mention a compatible remote.
If you want to learn Linux, I think Pi is pretty bang on. Vero just works out of the box, and is currently on sale.
Froma glance this looks similar to Estuary or even OSMC’s own skin. While I like OSMC as a distro, their skin is just not my cup of tea; same for Estuary. Too minimal for my eyes.
Hiya,
just upgraded my Vero 4K with OSMC’s August update which brought v19 to it. Since I’m a fan of the confluence skin and have been using it for about ten years now, I’d like to keep doing so even with v19. Most of the upgrade went smoothly. The only thing bugging me is this new search box on the right edge of the screen.
Is it possible to disable the new search box? No keyboard attached, so I have no use for it. I didn’t find an option in interface settings to hide it despite expert settings, and there’s no global search addon to remove/disable as suggested here because it’s not installed.
I already asked this on the confluence subforum of the official Kodi forums but so far there’s only one reply saying they’d like to know how to remove it as well.
Any ideas?
On that budget you can afford a Raspberry Pi 3B+ on which to install OSMC and a speedy 1 TB or larger SSD to store all your media, plus cables and power supplies. If you think you need the greater power of the Pi 4 and/or need UHD but can't wait, or just want a pre-installed supported platform, then get a Vero 4K.
If you know what you’re doing, just add OSMC’s skin to a standard Kodi installation inside your VM.
This page gives a pretty comprehensive look on what to expect with the skin but I guess you’re following a hands-on approach, right?
Hi,
>My media is located on an external USB HDD
Is does the external drive have its own power supply? If I suggest powering with a usb powered hub, I use this one:
https://osmc.tv/store/product/4-port-usb-3-0-powered-hub/
>Is the Pi 3 B underpowered and unable to handle the extra resource usage of managing metadata and playing back media?
If it isn't an official PSU or its quite old, I suggest replacing it.
Thanks Tom.
Like Gabers49 said, Shield TV Pro is probably the 'best' KODI machine that does other things (like Netflix etc and gaming).
If all you need is Kodi, osmc.tv makes a box called Vero that does Kodi very, very well.
You can also run Kodi on a small HTPC (atom or Intel).
You can run it on a Pi3/4 with LibreElec, but it's glitchy (still better than the CCwGTV) and a bit of work to set up.
OSMC is a fork of Kodi, I have used it on raspberry pi's and it worked great. For my remote control I used a logitech k400 keyboard. I noticed on OSMS's website they are selling a player, https://osmc.tv/vero/ it's called a vero 4k, it's £108.
If you're looking to build and tinker, get the raspberry pi. Want it to work out the box look at something like the vero.
You might even be able to use a chromecast w/ google tv, plug in a usb hub that will passthrough power and hook your usb drive to it. You would have to have a program like Kodi installed to the chromecast.
I eventually went with a dedicated plex server and media player.
Someone mentioned the Odroid N2+ which is a great suggestion. I went with the Khadas VIM3L and Coreelec, it can play 4k natively no problem. Another one is the Vero 4K+
On Windows you can use MPC-HC + madVR.
Since you are already using a Raspi, have you checked the Raspi 4? See here: Build the ultimate 4K home theatre PC using a Raspberry Pi 4 and Kodi.
AFAIK, 4K/H.264 is not supported, but 1080p/H.264 and 4K/H.265 (HEVC) are supported.
Of course, 4K/H.264 should not matter due to its inefficiency. HDR is currently not supported and its future in Pi4 is unclear, here is some info from half a year ago: Raspberry pi 4 - Wait for 4k HDR support or buy another board?.
Else you may look into the Vero 4K +, it's supposedly HDR10 ready and Kodi runs on it.
Personally I’d get a 4/5 bay NAS and a small media player and leave that to do the transcoding. I use a Vero 4K+ (https://osmc.tv/vero/) but another great alternative is the Nvidia Shield. Both a very inexpensive units.
That's probably the cache bug I mentioned before filling the shields ram completely causing slowdowns and lockups. I bet if you looked at a debug log you'd see a slew of read rate too slow errors.
Both work with cec, both do everything you want. The odroid is like a raspberry pi 4 it's an assemble yourself hobbyist type thing, but you can get a pre assembled bundle, just add a remote when ordering. The vero 4k+ is a ready to go kodi box.
Odroid Official Europe distributor
https://www.odroid.co.uk/bundles/CoreElec4GB
https://www.odroid.co.uk/odroid-accessories/odroid-connectivity/odroid-ir-remote
Or, if you want a nice polished ready to run solution:
https://osmc.tv/vero/
I've had mine for 2 years and it just works. But I still use Roku (I have a Roku TV) for Netflix, Amazon, YouTube. I only use OSMC for my local media.
From yesterday’s OSMC blog post about the October update:
>We also continue to work on Raspberry Pi 4 support and we will shortly make some kernel 5.x test builds available in our forums for currently supported Pi models so we can use a unified kernel code base for all models. > >Shortly, we will resume development on Kodi v19 support as the release cycle accelerates further towards a stable release. This version will bring support for the Raspberry Pi 4, however it should be noted that we expect to discontinue support for Raspberry Pi 0/1 and Vero 2 devices with the release of Kodi v19.
I have a Vero (https://osmc.tv/vero/) that’s purpose built for Kodi, so I use Jellyfin 4 Kodi, and get all the bitstreaming goodness that Vero/Kodi gives me while using Jellyfin backend. The downside is that it’s Kodi, so Netflix, Amazon, YouTube etc is a pain.
So I was thinking if the Shield can do playback flawlessly and let my receiver deal with decoding the sound I would switch. Frame rate switching etc all good as well on the Shield?
I have had loads of remotes/mini keyboards and nothing has beaten this for simplicity, build quality and reliability.
https://osmc.tv/store/product/osmc-remote-control
It works on any Kodi install.
Vero 4k+, if you're okay with using Kodi since there's no Android system but it's based on Debian
The software is being continually updated and within a month or two there should be a stable release with Debian 10, new Linux kernel, GPU drivers and HDR10, HDR10+ and HLG support. You can find more information on their site.
I'm using the testing release with all the new features and I have no problems whatsoever, it's a really good piece of tech and works very smoothly
Most 4K content now days is 265/HEVC, this is because the file sizes have become so large that it is the only way to get a decent bitrate without loosing all the quality. There is some content in 264 though, it depends where you are getting your content. If you are buying movies and ripping them yourself, you can always make sure to do it in HEVC and be fine. Everyones use case is different.
I would recommend checking out the Odroid N2 CoreELEC edition (which runs kodi). It is a little bit more, but it can handle 264 in case you happen to need it. It is a very great player and up to par with the nvidia shield in my experience, however it is MUCH cheaper. With the recent pushes for 8K (or proper 4K IMO... 4K 60hz at 4:4:4) I would maybe hold out until they release a new board with an HDMI 2.1 port instead, which will drastically increase its potential and bandwidth possibilities, which will push the rest of the hardware to its true limits. If you can't wait, the Odroid is a cheap option, the Vero 4k+ is also a fantastic player with no setup required, more of an out of box solution that is cheaper than the shield. Lastly if you got the money to throw down, you can go for the Shield. It has some other cool features as well, but in terms of a video client, all 3 are essentially the exact same. GB ethernet port, 4k/hdr/30hz, all run on kodi.
Roku firesticks/Chromecasts are meh... very little streaming power. If you want TrueHD/DTS-HD/Atmos streaming, they are definitely not the answer.
nVidia Shields are top notch and does all audio types but they are a little expensive.
I personally recommend this guy: https://osmc.tv/vero/
Runs OSMC with Kodi on top, use PlexKodiConnect to hook into your Plex Media Server. Streams everything at the highest bitrates and decodes all audio stream types.
The OSMC remote.
It works on anything. I have used one on my Linux PC, my Raspberry PIs running LibreELEC and a Windows 10 pc. It just works.
I was just assembling a list of supplies. Then just as soon as I started working on an list of operating systems with short descriptions of each, I realized there's a way to take care of about half the work. Instead of picking a Single Board Computer and an operating system and then loading the operating system on a microSD card, there is a much simpler option. The group behind one of the operating systems which is available for this sort of project, OSMC actually sells a device with the OS preloaded. It's pretty much all set up OOTB. It even comes with a nice remote. And it supports 4K HDR. Here's a link: https://osmc.tv/vero/
Just a tip (also LG owner) if you want to watch 4k with subtitles (even forced subtitles) and HDR you can't via the native plex app. I use the Vero 4K Plus and I'd strongly recommend it. It does Dolby atmos, 4K HDR and anything else you can throw at it. If you're ok searching for srt subs you can use the lg native plex app.
Edit: It's now possible to watch Dolby Vision content via Plex but it's still in its infancy if you follow the plex/MakeMKV forums people are still figuring out the best way. Vero doesn't support it at the moment but on their forums they've talked about possibly supporting it in the future. But even with the Vero the workarounds should in theory work.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/getting-hd-netflix/
I don't misunderstand, I explained it perfectly fine. The issue is people misunderstanding that not all browsers are optimized directly for streaming, and companies aren't going to spend much money/time enabling 4K (for every browser) streaming when other options exist.
As I said, use a lightweight OS built for streaming, install their app or a fully supported browser, and you'll be fine. Personally, I've never had a problem (although, I don't stream in 4K just 1080p, I know people who stream in 4K and they have no problem) and get full bit-rate. Neither have the other people who go this route. You can even install the OS (which is plug and play btw) on a flash drive, so you don't need to always use it either.
That's basically what you're doing when you buy a little set-top box, is purchasing an operating system/streaming OS/programs that's optimized/supported for that purpose. You can always go that route, or just take a little time and set your own up, either way works.
https://osmc.tv/ is an option just as an example, works great, is simple to set up/use, etc. Personally, I have my own that allows me to play a few games, browse/watch stuff online, stream, play movies/music off my NAS, stream it to other devices, really whatever I want. It's a neat option, and there's an amazing amount of functionality and support for them as well, depending on which route you go.
osmc or volumio (or similar - moode, pimusicbox) and add room-assistant
Media and presence detection.
Add one to every room.
I forgot you asked about hardware too. There are several ways to do it. You can get a NAS that can host Plex and use Plex apps for many devices. Or you can get a dedicated box like vero 4k+ and just connect a big hard drive to it.