Raspberry Pi XBMC

[Scott Penrose]

I know it is rather boring for this topic compared with CNC and 3D Printers, but I have my Raspberry Pi and I am testing out XBMC distribution here:

http://www.raspbmc.com/

Working well.

Scott

[Gareth Pye]

I've been thinking about doing the same. I'd love to hear what limitation you've run into.

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[Ryan Leach]

also there is support for openelec distribution for the pi that also uses xbmc with a few modifications

[Andy Gelme]

hi Scott,

On 2012-06-8 14:47 , Scott Penrose wrote:

I know it is rather boring for this topic compared with CNC and 3D Printers

Do you mean compared to this ?

   http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2012/05/30/100-meter-cnc-machine

but I have my Raspberry Pi and I am testing out XBMC distribution here:

http://www.raspbmc.com

If anyone is interested in playing with a Raspberry Pi ... drop into the HackerSpace tomorrow morning.

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[Scott Penrose]

On 08/06/2012, at 3:11 PM, Andy Gelme wrote:

hi Scott,

On 2012-06-8 14:47 , Scott Penrose wrote:

I know it is rather boring for this topic compared with CNC and 3D Printers

Do you mean compared to this ?

   http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2012/05/30/100-meter-cnc-machine

Very cool :-) I just mean the talk people have about using Raspberry Pi for controlling CNC (although I still, even after getting it, would recommend a BeagleBone instead).

but I have my Raspberry Pi and I am testing out XBMC distribution here:

http://www.raspbmc.com

If anyone is interested in playing with a Raspberry Pi ... drop into the HackerSpace tomorrow morning.

Excellent. I can't make it this time sorry. Hope to get more weekend time soon.

I am currently watching successfully a movie, iview and channel 7 through my TV. Really working well !

Scott

[James Muraca]

does it lag? i have seen videos when it was initially released and it was noticeably slow. This is exactly the use that iw ould like a raspberry pi for!

[Scott Penrose]

On 08/06/2012, at 3:36 PM, James Muraca wrote:

> does it lag? i have seen videos when it was initially released and it was noticeably slow. This is exactly the use that iw ould like a raspberry pi for!

Give me a night or two to watch and use it and I will give everyone an update. So far so good. But running one or two shows is not enough.

Scott

[Gareth Pye]

On Fri, Jun 8, 2012 at 3:31 PM, Scott Penrose <sco...@dd.com.au> wrote:

Very cool :-) I just mean the talk people have about using Raspberry Pi for controlling CNC (although I still, even after getting it, would recommend a BeagleBone instead).

Just looking at them I can see why. CNC control isn't something your likely to off load to the GPU so the Beagle is faster and the form factor in general is much more designed for easy intergration into larger electronics projects, the Rasberry Pi sort of assumes you want to play with PC devices via USB. 

I'm pretty excited by what the Rasberry Pi means for computing though. If I had kids of an appropriate age I'd buy them all a Rasberry Pi each and encourage them to use them. A Beagle board being more expensive and more niche desirable they'd have to push me to buy for them (I probably would, but they'd need a reason to want it first)

[Scott Penrose]

On 08/06/2012, at 4:08 PM, Gareth Pye wrote:

On Fri, Jun 8, 2012 at 3:31 PM, Scott Penrose <sco...@dd.com.au> wrote:

Very cool :-) I just mean the talk people have about using Raspberry Pi for controlling CNC (although I still, even after getting it, would recommend a BeagleBone instead).

Just looking at them I can see why. CNC control isn't something your likely to off load to the GPU so the Beagle is faster and the form factor in general is much more designed for easy intergration into larger electronics projects, the Rasberry Pi sort of assumes you want to play with PC devices via USB. 

I'm pretty excited by what the Rasberry Pi means for computing though. If I had kids of an appropriate age I'd buy them all a Rasberry Pi each and encourage them to use them. A Beagle board being more expensive and more niche desirable they'd have to push me to buy for them (I probably would, but they'd need a reason to want it first)

Yes totally agree. The Raspberry pi is more useful and cheaper. The idea of putting an interface on everything is very nice. While the BB is really about IO and doesn't even come with any video. RP was designed for education and it is really neat little device. And at $25 for education (no ethernet, well you can use USB ethernet) it is no disaster if you blow one up.

Interesting question - what is the cheapest HDMI TV screen you can get? Any size. Add that to the $25/$35 and a keyboard and mouse and you have everything to get started. FYI - I had to spend as much on a HDMI cable as the RP itself ! How is that for messed up.

Scott

[Ryan Leach]

it doesnt have to be hdmi does it? anything with composite ( the yellow in red white yellow for tv's) should work as well?

[Jan Schmidt]

The most obvious lag is in the menu system. The video decode works great
(for the supported formats) - since it's all offloaded to the GPU. The
story is less great for any format that isn't accelerated, of course.

I'm not clear on whether the openelec distro I tried is: a) compiled to
use hardware float support b) using the closed EGL implementation
broadcom provide - if either of those is missing, there's still
significant gains to be made for the XBMC menu UI.

- Jan.

> Scott
>

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Jan Schmidt <tha...@noraisin.net>

[Scott Penrose]

On 09/06/2012, at 12:48 AM, Jan Schmidt wrote:

> On Fri, 2012-06-08 at 15:38 +1000, Scott Penrose wrote:
>> On 08/06/2012, at 3:36 PM, James Muraca wrote:
>>
>>> does it lag? i have seen videos when it was initially released and it was noticeably slow. This is exactly the use that iw ould like a raspberry pi for!
>>
>> Give me a night or two to watch and use it and I will give everyone an update. So far so good. But running one or two shows is not enough.

After one night I have the following observations.

* Menu system is slow, but quite acceptable. I have used slower devices
* I played Lord of the Rings Pt 1 and although the sound was find, the pictures would skip fast to catch up. Awful to watch. This was only SD but high bit rate (about 2GB for the first half).
* It crashed once, at the end of a movie, just didn't get back to the menu.

So some negatives, but generally it is working pretty well. I am not personally very happy with XBMC, Boxee and Plex are much more user friendly, but it seem XBMC is getting more work these days so I think it is the one to concentrate on.

Scott