get_iplayer works for me. There's also Raspbmc and the xbmc-iplayerv2 plugin which I also use.
Yep! It's a fully functional computer. It's not tremendously powerful, but it's good enough to do things like steaming video and running console emulators.
Also, it boots off of a micro SD card, but it's more than happy to use a portable HD extra storage. It's powered via
Feel free to check out the /r/raspberry_pi subreddit.
Hello!
You can either download RaspBMC (http://www.raspbmc.com/) or if you're interested in building your own TV application you can learn how to do it here ( http://blog.donaldderek.com/2013/06/build-your-own-google-tv-using-raspberrypi-nodejs-and-socket-io/ )
If you want to try a Raspi 2, Raspbmc / OSMC may do the trick. UI is decently easy after setup and you can use it with a remote or a controller, or even hardware buttons from the GPIO.
Network video and music is easy. Netflix you can get using PlayOn if you have a Windows computer and a few bucks to spare.
Looking around, i see some plugins that supposedly offer Youtube support for Raspbmc but I have no idea how well they work. Depending on your code skills, you might be able to use Youtube-dl to write your own...
quickedit: What interfaces are your son comfortable with now - you mentioned a game controller. Does he play console games? Almost any system that will solve your other challenges can be manipulated via controller, but there are other interface options too. It's hard being on the spectrum, I'm sure you want him to be as comfortable as possible.
It seems that it is possible to upgrade a micro sd card for the B+ to work with the Pi 2.
This article from The Pi Hut explains the procedure for Raspbian. I'm not sure how it works with the Raspbmc distro, but I assume there is some way to do it...
Haven't tested it myself, I ordered late. However, it seems like it should work correctly from reading it.
Unfortunately, I have the Model B (not plus) running XBMC, and I'm stuck with the full size SD card, so it's a moot point for me.
EDIT: Raspbmc will not be updated for the Pi 2, but apparently there is a successor, OSMC, in alpha now (that I apparently need to look into).
this is fairly simple.
get a fairly fast microsd card, i have a samsung class 10 90Mb read / 50Mb write and that was a big upgrade from my sandisk class 10 40mb/s read/write.
download the latest Kodi/XBMC release from here and write it to the sdcard.
insert the sdcard into your pi and plug in a usb keyboard, make sure it has an ethernet connection if possible for simplicities sake, you'll be prompted a couple of times during the install iirc.
At this stage you have a working xbmc server. The rest is dependant on your external hard drive and what capabilities it has, such as.
Can your hard drive serve as a DHCP server - not essential, will just make portability easier
What sharing options do you have from the hard drive (NFS/SMB). Personally i'd recommend NFS if it supports it since it has a much lower resource requirement on the pi.
If you have both of the above covered from your hard disk then all you need to do is plug your HDD into the same network as your pi (crossover cable would work fine) and index your media on the pi.
I recommend using the Apptv theme since it's low resource and easy to use.
I have one running Raspbmc as a media center.
I have another running RaspberryPints as a digital taplist, soon to be expanded to a keg monitor (just need flow meters).
Known issue in RaspBMC October update (http://www.raspbmc.com/2013/11/raspbmcs-october-update/). Check out the top comment for more info and work-around. Essentially 2.0 down-mix will fix your problem (or an upgrade)
~~Raspberry Pi?~~
Edit: Thanks /u/bradmont for pointing out this wouldn't work with Pipelight.
RaspBMC will have it soon allegedly although it will have to stream through another PC :(
If you are going to use a PI, http://www.raspbmc.com/
If you are going to use any other type of computer, xbmc installs on pretty much anything. EVEN android devices, although its not quite as good.
The power of XBMC is its ease of control + plugins. You can control it with any old smartphone, a wireless keyboard, or remote designed for PC use. I like using my phone. There are plugins for most major video sites + you can either play from a locally attached usb drive or stream from another computer on the network (no need to transcode).
I use an app called showbox that pretty much just transfers a link to the video file to the XBMC and starts playing it, the xbmc streams it. I also have it setup to save anything I stream that way on my PC over the network for use if my internet ecer goes out.
I don't think I could advocate for raspbmc any more than I already do. It's great... it blows rokus and chromecast out of the water.
Not to mention its basically a debian linux system with xbmc thrown on it. You can SSH into it to restart it or update it whenever you want without having to be home.
Disclaimer: I've been drinking, thoughts aren't in order.
I've got one at the moment, the menus are a bit sluggish but the actual playback works very well. It works better if you use a dedicated XBMC distro like Raspbmc or OpenELEC. You can also change the memory split so it allocates 128MB (of the total 256MB) to the GPU, rather than 192MB, which is the default.
I want to get one of these and put RasBmc on it, to use as a home theatre set up. For the price that's pretty unbeatable, and as I don't watch a lot of live tv any more this is perfect.
I was hoping someone would make a PLEX Linux build, as that's what I currently use for my home network streaming and media organising, but XBMC is also pretty damn good.
There also this AllWinner alternative to the Pi. It's a little more expensive but slightly higher spec. Hopefully this is the start of a trend. http://opensource.com/life/12/1/linux-hardware-race-tiniest-and-cheapest-15-cheap
I'm fairly new to the RPi (my 2 is on order right now) but I've done a little reading about it...
There are a few benchmark tests that I've seen (that the other user has listed) that seem to indicate a significant increase in speed
As far as I know because the old Kernel was compiled for the ARM6 chip and the new version is the ARM7 so a straight swap with your SD card might not work... The RaspBMC site seems to indicate that you will need a fresh install at the moment but they are working on a way to upgrade an old version.
I don't think RaspBMC does anything weird with networking, so the two should be able to coexist relatively well. What guide or what info are you using to set up the access point? I'm assuming your accessing RaspBMC via SSH as in this tutorial? Can you post up the scripts you're using, and the results of an ifconfig on the pi when it's not working?
This is a great idea but you have incorrect info in the post.
> Play 1080 video and digital sound on your home theatre system with Kodi (was RaspBMC)[6] or OpenELEC[7]
Kodi is not the new name of Raspbmc . . . Kodi is the new name of the XBMC project. XBMC is no more, Kodi is the new name of it.
Raspbmc was named that based on XBMC. They decided to change the name of Raspbmc to OSMC however OSMC is not complete so Raspbmc is still the current name.
Raspbmc = Kodi 14 (formerly XBMC) and older
TL:DR
The Kodi name applies to XBMC but not Raspbmc. Raspbmc is still the current name of the project but it will eventually change to OSMC.
Source: http://www.raspbmc.com/2014/12/raspbmc-gets-kodi-osmc-hits-alpha/
There are two main Raspberry Pi distros that run XBMC.
The one I use is: http://www.raspbmc.com/
The other distro is: http://openelec.tv/
Both have their followings. When I looked, which has been 2 years, openelec had the more vocal following and it seemed to be agreed on a technical advantage, but I already had raspbmc working and was satisfied, so I saw no reason to switch.
Both sites have tons of docs, but I am happy to answer any specific questions with my experience.
yup, even easier than that...just get a sd card, copy the image from here, pop it in, boot it up! i would recommend getting the pi with a ethernet jack or get a usb wifi adapter, once it's connected to your network you can control the pi with a android device (using something like yatse) but im sure there's windows/mac variants for controlling it. works great for a cheap budget!
Airplay for iOS7 was fixed in the November update for RaspBMC.
Not sure what was done though. Trying to dig though the forums to find it.
I was thinking of something similar recently making a simple slideshow to play ads on that would require little maintenance on our end.
I came up with RaspBMC for the PIs. Using XBMC.
we mounted a shared folder in /etc/fstab so it will always be available. but we did need to install cifs-utils to recognize windows shares.
here's the instructions.
mkdir /mnt/share sudo nano ~/.smbcredentials in .smbcredentials
username=<share username> password=<share password> save and exit.
sudo chmod 600 ~/.smbcredentials
sudo nano /etc/fstab in fstab
//servername/sharename /mnt/share cifs credentials=/home/<username>/.smbcredentials,iocharset=utf8,sec=ntlm 0 0
save and exit
cd ~/.xbmc/userdata sudo nano autoexec.py
in autoexec.py
import xbmc from time import sleep from os import listdir
minutes = 1 picfolder = "//mnt//share"
l1 = [] while 1: l2 = listdir(picfolder) if (l1 != l2): xbmc.executebuiltin("Slideshow(//mnt//share)") l1 = l2 for seconds in range(minutes * 60): sleep(1)
save and exit.
reboot the pi and it should auto launch XBMC into a slide show pulling the files from your shared location, it will also check for updates every minute and auto add/remove the pictures from the rotation.
This is where i got the python script used in autoexec.py
EDIT realized i had the hidden file, .smbcredentials, turning into an executable
It would be as simple as this command: 'sudo apt-get install vlc' Aptitude is a package manager in Debian, and vlc has native Debian support, so simply typing that would install it for you.
I haven't played around with it, but there is another operating system for the pi called RaspBMC which you can use to stream videos and other media. I don't know about music and external harddrives however. You may want to explore both avenues and choose which one works best.
I have a R_Pi and went the Rasbmc way. I don't know if you can play Minecraft from within Raspbmc so this may not be an option for you.
However One way is to have XBMC within Raspbian to watch your video streams from your server. Here is a link I found to a project someone has going with the above description. Link Cheers.
Have you looked at (the not 100% stable) Raspmc. Although, I suppose it depends on what you mean by "multimedia hub".
You could just install some media library/playback programs. I can't remember whether VLC is available for RasPi yet - I can't see why not, though.
There's nothing too confusing about the RasPi versions of Linux. Once you've logged in, you can do (almost) everything with the GUI. Like Mac OS, there are very few reasons to ever bring up a bash terminal.
*Edited: fixed url formatting
i think the last one that supported ARMv6 was 9.04 so you can use Ubuntu, it's just a tad stale. I would seriously doubt they would change their mind in this regard as they are full speed ahead with Unity and their spin offs (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, etc) are pretty cruddy and not-well supported.
On the other hand, I plan on running: http://www.stmlabs.com/tag/crystalbuntu/
because the developer said he will support the raspberry pi and it's geared towards running XBMC (my main use for this board)
I've no idea if the addon you want exists, but you may have picked the wrong Distro for what you want.. Openelec is a stripped back linux designed to run only KODI.. if you want other things running in the background you may want to look at Raspbmc / OSMC. They offer a more full featured linux tool set.
If you install Raspbmc you will get Kodi (new XBMC) running on top of Linux. You can then install SickRage and Transmission on the Linux OS that comes with Raspbmc. Configure SickRage to download your torrents to your HDD. Hope my explanation is understandable, if not let me know!
I've never used Raspbmc but my understanding is that it's still a tad bit clunky on the UI side of things. Also, the current version of Raspbmc is the last version.
From HTPC Beginner: > OpenELEC basically has no extra options than what comes bundled with XBMC (or Kodi moving forward). Raspbmc on the other hand is a full debian OS, which gives you the ability to install Debian packages. So one day if you decide to install Transmission bittorrent on it you can do so. In fact, Raspbmc comes built-in with apps like TVHeadend, SABnzbd, etc. On top of that, you may install packages from the Debian repositories allowing for lot more possibilities than OpenELEC. > > Raspbmc provides more control over some of the base functions of the system and it is easy to overclock Raspbmc through the menu. OpenELEC is more protective and messing with the base system requires commandline work.
No, but I can point you to different forum posts to where I helped others with certain parts. The main os is Raspbmc: http://www.raspbmc.com/ Let me know what other parts you are interested in and I can talk you through it if you need.
Basics of what? The Pi is basically a mini PC running Linux (the default variant being Raspbian, which is a version of Debian Linux). Are you familiar with Linux?
What do you want to use it for? As a media player? A game console? Tinkering with electronics? If it's the last one, you're gonna need to know the basics of programming in Python and basic electronics as well.
It's a full-fledged computer with added connectivity for electronics. It can be used for almost anything a computer can be used for and more. For example, you can even turn it in to a Bluetooth audio receiver that broadcasts your music over FM radio waves.
I guess understanding how Linux works is the number one useful thing to know in any case. Why not install Ubuntu on a flash drive and try it out on your PC?
Look into Raspbmc and Openelec as two very straightforward was of getting Kodi (formerly xbmc) running on a Raspberry Pi. I picked one up just to play and have found loads of help and great tutorials all over the place. It's mostly easier than I expected. I occasionally get stuck trying new things but there's always the Raspberry pi sub /r/raspberry_pi which is full of people who will try to help.
If you're using raspbmc, which is based on raspbian (which is based on debian) you can SSH into it (default username/password is pi/raspberry) and access apt that way.
I have a Raspberry Pi running Raspbmc (http://www.raspbmc.com/), with all my files stored on a NAS elsewhere, and with a FLiRC (flirc.tv) to receive signals from an old Harmony remote control (which also controls the TV itself). It works pretty well for me, but I'm also Linuxy, and I have no compunction about altering obscure config files on the fly.
Major advantages of the RasPi over other approaches:
Major disadvantages of a RasPi over other approaches:
I'm "generally tech-savvy" but had never played around with a Raspberry Pi before. I used this guide (http://www.spillmonkey.com/?page_id=5) to figure out what to purchase and how to "image" the device.
Yes - you'll need to purchase stuff. It'll be on the order of ~$50 for everything. Note that you're getting a Raspberry Pi, so you can always swap out the SD card and use it as an emulator machine via PiPlay (http://pimame.org/), or a XMBC via Raspbmc (http://www.raspbmc.com/), or just a general Linux box to toy around on.
Good luck!
There is a licencing issue to deal with hardware decoding of MPEG formats, a licence is needed http://www.raspberrypi.com/mpeg-2-license-key/
I've used XMBC in the form http://www.raspbmc.com/ for a couple of years now and its been perfect. I have Yatse installed on my phone as a remote control, and thats been perfect too.
Another option would be to run XBMC on the Raspberry Pi and use one of the remote control apps in the store (I use XBMC remote).
OpenELEC /storage/.xbmc/userdata/
ssh into the raspberry pi / openelec and put the file there. make sure you reference mysql host (your win 7 box) by IP.
here is a good guide on how to ssh to your pi if you need it: Using SSH
You can use RaspBMC http://www.raspbmc.com/ to run the Pi as a media center.
Or if streaming is all you are after you might consider Google's Chromecast http://www.google.com/intl/en-us/chrome/devices/chromecast/
There's a dedicated OS for media center. Here's a lifehacker post that will teach you how to set it up. However, I haven't used it and all I can tell you is it plays local HD videos well. I don't know how well it can stream videos for example.
$400 is a reasonable budget for hardware, throw in another $110 for a licensed copy of windows and your good to go on that front.
If you want to use word/excel use google docs or buy office (either $130ish for 2013 or some smaller monthly fee for 365)
Alternatively, look at a raspberry pi for ~$50-60 all up with Raspbmc (XBMC on a raspberry pi) and save up for a better desktop later (if that's your goal)
Damn, sorry dude. I really should have given some more details. I'm using the RCA output in to the composite socket on the TV. I setup the SD card using my Macbook and this script provided here. http://www.raspbmc.com/wiki/user/os-x-linux-installation/
I'm going to download n00bs and see if it makes a difference. Tomorrow, I think I might try to find a RCA to SCART adapter just to test with. Thank you for your help btw.
Edit: I have now tried installing with n00bs, and with no luck I'm afraid. After choosing PAL, the image is still black and white.
I haven't played with this use of a Raspberry Pi, but it looks like it's pretty simple to set up as a media centre. I found these through some googling:
I don't know if it will do the streaming that you want. It looks like launching a browser from the media centre interface is possible through some XBMC addons.
I'd really recommend you grab the official user guide . All the info is out there on the forums but this is a great place to start and has a few cool electronics projects at the end to try. I got mine over Christmas and I was amazed at how easy it was to get going with it.
Current plans are to play with XMBC, set up a home VPN and http proxy, BitTorrent server and try my hand at some programming python.
Well, since it's linux, you can probably just press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to fuck the system and do what you want (Open a virtual terminal).
XMBCbuntu is built on another Desktop Environment, with the latest flash and Chromium!(The linux bleeding-edge chrome)
I'd recommend reading the wiki for more info, because I'n logging off now ;)
EDIT: Just saw an official raspberry xbmc distro, RaspBMC!
It's pretty straight forward, but you do need to use an XMBC distro that's specifically for the pi. Fortunately, a few of these already exist: http://www.raspbmc.com/
The pi boots off of an SD card, so basically all you need to do is to download an XBMC distro, and copy it to an SD card. This will boot up, and run xbmc - everything is already configured (except media sources of course). There are quite a few install guides out there.
If you're using an IR dongle or USB hub, just make sure that you purchase one that is listed as supported.
haven't heard of plex on the raspberry pi yet, but I just installed raspbmc (an optimized linux with preconfigured XBMC on it) and it looks AMAZING. My ideal setup would be a Mac mini running Plex server in one room connected to my "primary" TV and my DIY raspberry pi solution running raspbmc in the other room, ideally being able to connect to plex. Haven't looked into it since I don't have a Mac mini yet though - raspbmc looks awesome so far.
yes, here.
I see the reason, at least for the remote issue:
http://www.raspbmc.com/2012/10/raspbmc-512mb-support-more-improvements/
> * A much improved XBMC build that address many issues. Note that if you’re using an Android or iOS remote, some may not work, as the HTTP API is now deprecated in XBMC. You can revert your build via Raspbmc Settings though.
i also experience problems when accessing NFS-shares
wasn't able to fix ("revert") successfully until yet. Anybody did it ?
For me personally, no. Skipping through the menus was awkwardly slow. And it was irritating that a video started with audio, but it took 10 seconds to display it. And sometimes some stuttering. I used RC3 or 4 of http://www.raspbmc.com/
Maybe they fixed it by now, but i moved on and build a small ITX setup with an i3 in a low profile case and OpenElec. It's bigger than a raspberry but honestly, it is dwarfed by my xbox. And the price wasn't too shabby for perfect playback.
I might hook up my raspberry for an entire different project if i find one.
I read last week some that there's a bunch of live TV stuff which is becoming possible with the purchase of the MPEG2 decoder license.
http://www.raspbmc.com/2012/09/raspbmc-gets-pvr-support-xbmc-update-super-easy-to-install-codecs/
This might be useful too: http://forum.stmlabs.com/showthread.php?tid=2648
I read yesterday that there's a bunch of live TV stuff which is becoming possible with the purchase of the MPEG2 decoder license.
http://www.raspbmc.com/2012/09/raspbmc-gets-pvr-support-xbmc-update-super-easy-to-install-codecs/
Edit: this might be useful too: http://forum.stmlabs.com/showthread.php?tid=2648
Not sure. Where I bought mine they had cases I could add to my order for $7.
http://uk.rs-online.com
The install is really easy though. Pop in a SD card, connect the Pi to your desktop via USB and run the Rasbmc installer GUI.
http://www.raspbmc.com/
You can connect a USB keyboard to the Pi to initially navigate through the XBMC interface and set up alternate remote methods like the web server or a mobile phone app.
Not sure about getting WiFi to work on a Pi though. Works out of the box with LAN of course.
I'd check out Raspbmc : http://www.raspbmc.com/ it's still in beta, but the new version is very good. You can use a lot of the existing XBMC plugins to stream to other devices, use iphone / ipad remote control apps etc. So far I've been working mostly on using it as an iplayer box, but there's lots of forum support on the site for other plugins - which i think include transmission and the like.
well, raspbmc does. I confirmed it, and its also posted on their RC3. Sadly it spontaneously reboots. DarkELEC seems to be winning but is taking around 45 seconds to load.
Hi, sorry only just saw this, otherwise I would've responded sooner.
I'm planning to do some HD video testing of my own, pretty much my entire x264/xvid collection is sd (i tend to buy blurays of favorite movies) so I'll do a post about it in the near future.
I'm not sure whether I want troubleshooting/tech problem type submissions here, the goal was more about customizing/modding/pluggins/news/announcements. As the http://www.raspbmc.com/forum/ forums and the http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/ community are generally better places to get things fixed/resolved.
Either way, stay tuned for my tests on hd playback, I'll be doing usb hdd tests/ethernet tests and direct sdcard/home/ tests to see how it stacks up.
This is as close to bleeding edge as possible. Nightly builds are slowly fixing the SD cards issues. The newest RC2 was released today in which i have not tested my "bad" SD cards yet.
**My current go to SD card is ironically a Mini-SD card (with adapter).
Some quick solutions to problems I ran into with RC1 (not sure if they are still in RC2):
Win32DiskImager
and kept running into the problem of there not being enough space on the partition for the full-install to download. Of course the installer fails gracefully and says that everything was a "success". Using dd
from a linux machine fixed it.Where did you order it from? RS
What country are you from? US
What date did you order it? Fri, apr 13. I "registered my interest within ~10mins of launch. I think that's the relevant fact rather than the exact time I made my order using my reserved spot in line.
When you received it? Haven't yet, but DHL called me an hour or so ago trying to deliver a package, which I suspect will be the Pi. I'm unlikely to be around to actually get it til fri, unless they try late/early enough tomorrow that one of my roommates is around.
Order number(feel free to x out the last couple of numbers) 14xx, but again it's the place in line from registering early that's relevant.
And a bonus question, any cool plans with what you want to do with it? Clearly I'm just going to slap the first available build of RaspMC on it.