HTPC Talk to me about Raspberry Pi as XBMC HTPC

So I'm looking to hook up the little ones bedroom with a HTPC for general kids films etc duties.

TV had a HDMI I found out today so all systems go towards a Pi unit. I'm no stranger to XBMC as its my front end of choice for years now but I've no Pi experience.

I'm looking at video / music, ideally needs to be able to support 1080p mkv all provided over cat5.

To setup a complete unit what would I require?
Anyone running one to comment on ease of setup, reliability, interfacing with remote etc?

 

I haven't done any remote interfacing with it yet and have barely had a chance to configure it properly and use it, but one of my Pi's is running XBMC in the living room and easily streams 720p Matroska video and high bitrate MP3s from my server to a 42" LCD TV. It's absolutely flawless, and the setup (so far) was simple enough.

What I needed;

- One rectangular slice of Raspberry Pi
- An SDHC card
- A copy of Raspbmc - http://www.raspbmc.com

Raspbmc does support 1080p playback, I just don't have much stuff in 1080, my library is mostly in 720p.

And as long as you already know how to or can follow simple instructions on how to create a bootable flash disk, you shouldn't have any problems. I had mine streaming within an hour, YMMV

 

Sounds good. I've just had a though as I maybe only able to goto 720p as its a 28" Tv LCD so I doubt it will be full 1080p HD anyway.

Do you leave it connected to power 24/7 as I've read briefly on the Pi FAQ about its on off switch being if its powered up or not? I use S3 on my HTPC and wake from remote/LAN so its it a case of booting every time I use it? Whats the boot times like?

 

At the moment mine is switched at the wall, what you've read on the Pi FAQ is exactly right - I usually don't switch it off if I'm using it regularly (like, 2 evenings in a row for example) but I do have plans to mount a power switch on the case that I'm putting it in, which will switch the 5V mini USB supply. The boot time is silly quick. From switching it on at the wall, I can be watching a film in less than a minute, much the same as my Apple TV.

 

Cool, I'll remember about the power supply then - might end up modding a switch in there myself.

Realistically what size memory card you need for xbmc? All media will be streamed so initially it just needs to hold the DB and artwork (+OS). I've seen a very slim MicroSD based card which give a flush finish when the Pi is in a case and I've a couple 4, 8 & 16GB MicroSD's kicking around

 

Yeah, the only reason I will add a case switch to mine is because it's inconvenient to have to reach behind the TV stand to turn it on/off every time, which is my mine mostly stays on

The minimum required for Raspbmc is 2GB and at least class 4 - Mine is a 4GB class 6 card, but I plan on getting an 8GB one to replace it, because the thumbnails of my (actually huge) video libraries have already filled it up quite a bit

 

Well the plan is to have 2 shares on the nas to have isabelle's kiddy stuff separate so the library shouldn't get too huge. I've no idea on the class of the kit I've got - will have to check on that. The TV is wall mounted about 5 foot up the wall in the corner above the bed so the plan is to velcro it to the Tv/Stand, have the cat5 come in from the ceiling (where the Tv ariel also comes in) and have a 4 gang power mounted to the wall so theres no trailing cables etc and its out of her 5yo reach

Me and the Mrs split about 3 month ago so I'm only having Issy stay over 3 nights a week so turning off between use shouldn't be an issue so an inline switch would be useful. If I get one I might look at making my own case for it can't be too hard.

 

Really, less than a minute? What version of xbmc are you running?

I currently use openelec and find the boot time on a class 10 relatively slow, not to mention the menus are fairly sluggish. I tried raspbmc but it would not playback 1080 smooth

Playback is perfect though for 1080p, but it takes about 20 secs for the film to buffer before it starts playing.

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version 5 is out now and is a fair bit quicker.

http://www.raspbmc.com/download/

It did crash a few times during the install but with the card formatted it just whistled on.

 

I'm using Raspbmc and it boots quicky every time after the first couple The menus in Raspbmc are no more sluggish than a first generation Apple TV. I have a little buffering as well, although not 20 seconds. I'm playing 720p videos delivered via Cat6 through a Dell gigabit switch.

 

so I was using my Raspberry pi as a RaspBMC player from a ready NAS duo v1. and I got frustrated by the playback of HD content - I would start a film playing and it would essentially 'stutter' - basically making it unwatchable

I will caveat this by saying I was using it several months ago - so it may be a case that the software has improved

 

Same here, but I'm willing to give the new version a try.

Openelec has been fine though just a little slow to boot, menus feel sluggish and bidding before a 1080 movie, but it's ask perfectly liveable

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It's mainly lower bit rate stuff I'm looking at, mostly Disney / cartoon based so 720p is more than enough and most will be straight DVD rips.

Will be running over 100mb switch for now, gigabit eventually as I want to upgrade to all gigabit but I doubt it's going to matter as the Pi only has a 100mb LAN interface from what I can tell.

I'm gonna keep an eye out for one as I think I've heard enough to make it worth having a go. Other option was an appleTV but cost wise Pi would be preference

 

Haven't read what everyone else has written, but all I'll say is its perfect!

Plays everything I've thrown at it so far. Easy to setup, I've had mine running 24/7 for a couple of weeks now.

I bought the cheapest remote and IR adaptor I could find on ebay and it works perfectly (this one)

 

Did you manage to get wifi working?

 

I had raspxmbc running on mine, but it would stream HD movies over the 10/100 interface it has. Has anybody else not had this problem?

 

Ive got WiFi working on mine quite happily using the Xbian variant of XMBC which has a slight boost in CPU and mem speeds from memory its 800Mhz for the CPU and 350Mhz for the RAM.
Only thing im stuck on is the mini display via GPIO seems to just give me blocks and no text despite being coded and enabled.

 

Has anyone tried one of these with the Pi and XMBC?

Less £21 new on the bay - looks like a bargain. If it's any good, of course.

 

Which display are you using with yours? I'd like to put one on my Raspbmc Pi when I get it cased up.

 

I personally like to use my rii touch n7, I'd be hard pressed to find anything better.



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