XBMC Running On Raspberry Pi

jones_supa writes "The Raspberry Pi Foundation has a news release about Raspberry Pi running XBMC smoothly, turning the board into a media center the size of deck of cards. Looking at Pi's low price, small size and hardware 1080p support, this could make an interesting HTPC project. Included is a video demonstration of the setup. For this to be possible, the XBMC team created a customized version that targets the beefier Raspberry Pi model."

Comments

Excellent

[click2005]

HTPC in your pocket

Re:Excellent

[SJHillman]

No, I'm just happy to see you.

Re:Excellent

[Malard]

What's more, we're working on getting libCEC to support the built in CEC support so you won't need the USB - CEC Adapter to get built in remote control support!

Re:Excellent

[Joce640k]

Sure...so long as you're happy with video at eight frames/sec.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

H264 video up to 1080p is decoded at 30fps.

Re:Excellent

[hairyfeet]

But does it have enough power to actually record? Or is it just another media tank? hell if you want a full blown HTPC you can buy an AMD based for cheap and slap on your choice of Linux or Windows and voila! Instant HTPC with XBMC (or if you use Windows WMC or MediaPortal) and if all you want is a media tank you can buy the Nbox HD for $59 that does 1080p and is ready to go or if you want streaming a WDTV for $99.

Don't get me wrong the Raspberry looks like a cool toy to fiddle with, i just don't see it having enough horse to be a full blown HTPC. Recording HD or even SD video can put a strain on a chip and the Raspberry was made to be low priced not high powered. But I have a feeling once you added all the stuff required to make it a fully functional HTPC you'd be better off just getting one the the AMD E-350s and calling it a day. According to Phoronix Ubuntu 10.04 and better has OOTB support for those chips so it should be a cakewalk to make a XBMC system out of one, everything works OOTB.

Re:Excellent

[Joce640k]

HTPC in your pocket

For some strange definition of "pocket" - it's hardly USB-stick sized.

I'm not even sure it's smaller then existing HTPCs.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

HTPC in your pocket

What the hell is a 'Hot Top PC'?

Re:Excellent

[jo_ham]

It has an H.264 hardware decoder.

Re:Excellent

[smi.james.th]

The plus side being that Raspberry Pi costs only $25... If you already have an external drive with media on it, then it's a bargain.

My suspicion is that its power consumption will also be quite low, which is a big plus these days. Looks like it'd suit me fine, I'm not an intense media consumer, so high-performance HTPC isn't especially something that I need.

FWIW, I suspect a large part of doing this is just because you can. To demonstrate that you don't need the latest and greatest (read: most expensive) hardware to do your basic things.

Re:Excellent

[viperidaenz]

Its credit card sized.

Re:Excellent

[19thNervousBreakdown]

I can't find the post now, but I saw a post by an admin on the board that the GPU supports H.264 1080p30 HP encoding as well, but they aren't advertising it due to not exposing the interface or something, but they do have plans to do so in the future.

Re:Excellent

[Joce640k]

It has an H.264 hardware decoder.

Yep, I get that. A normal ARM isn't capable of decoding H264 so the Pi must have hardware and they must be using it.

So why is the video only 8fps? That's a factor of four slower than what's needed for an HTPC. Something is seriously wrong.

Re:Excellent

[Joce640k]

The plus side being that Raspberry Pi costs only $25... If you already have an external drive with media on it, then it's a bargain.

Yes, but why? You just spent thousands on your TV, sound system, storage devices, etc. Why can't you spend more than $25 on the media player?

Re:Excellent

[spire3661]

IS Apple TV a full blown HTPC? ROKU? WD LIVE? NO these are embedded streamers.ANd for the record with some Ethernet based tuners (HDHomerun PRIME) im sure it could record easily. (pure transport streams only)

Re:Excellent

[Gaygirlie]

You're mixing things: the video plays at full speed, it's the window below it that has 8 fps. Ie. It's as it should be.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not the FPS of the video. I think he says that's the rate the video info window updates. If you actually look at the video it runs smoothly at fullspeed.

Re:Excellent

[wagnerrp]

Recording HD or even SD video can put a strain on a chip and the Raspberry was made to be low priced not high powered. But I have a feeling once you added all the stuff required to make it a fully functional HTPC you'd be better off just getting one the the AMD E-350s and calling it a day.

Recording HD or even SD video hardly puts any strain on a chip, since you would be foolish to record anything that didn't come pre-compressed, either from a digital tuner, or analog encoder. All the chip has to do is shuffle bits from the capture subsystem to the storage subsystem. The question then becomes one of whether the performance of a late-90s PC is sufficient for your metadata needs, running the database, processing guide data, performing scheduling decisions, post-recording analysis of the video, etc...

If you're actually looking for a fully functional HTPC, you're better off getting real hardware, and not some intentionally underpowered system. Electricity is cheap, modern chips idle very efficiently, and it's not like you can't just put the thing in standby or power it off if you're that concerned. Having some real meat behind your HTPC just opens up a bunch of new possibilities, and opportunity for expansion.

Re:Excellent

[Joce640k]

Its credit card sized.

It certainly doesn't look like it in that video.

But... I found some dimensions here: http://www.pyrosoft.co.uk/blog/2012/01/15/raspberry-pi-measurements-dimensions/

More like "playing card size" than "credit card size" but yeah, you could probably make a box not much bigger than a smartphone. My bad.

Re:Excellent

[youn]

lol, price, size, wow factor... keep in mind the cheapest thing on the link you provided is $100 more than the price of the pi... yes the nbox is cheap but no match neither in price nor in power

Re:Excellent

[chill]

Because the storage devices are centralized, at least in my case with a media server in the basement.

The TVs and sound systems in each bedroom are NOT thousands of dollars. You can get 40" 1080p systems for around $300 now. Cheaper if you can deal with 720p.

Now, for under $50 (includes case, power supply, etc.) I can pop a box on the back of the TV to access everything I have centrally stored (400+ movies, 200+ TV episodes, 100+ short animations, 1,000+ music/audio) in each room. And if their Hulu and Amazon Prime plug-ins for XMBC work as well, get all that.

Re:Excellent

[smi.james.th]

You didn't necessarily just spend those thousands. Many households already have many of those things.

In my current situation for example, I have a desktop PC and an external hard drive of my own, and a TV in a communal area in the house. It's a big schlep moving my PC to within reach of the TV so I can plug an HDMI cable in. A $25 HTPC would suit me just fine.

Re:Excellent

[quarkoid]

No, it's credit card sized. How many times do you need to be told?

http://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Picture-001-copy.jpg

(ignore the border - that's removed after manufacture).

Re:Excellent

[Dinghy]

Yes, but why? You just spent thousands on your TV, sound system, storage devices, etc. Why can't you spend more than $25 on the media player?

Not everyone spends thousands on their home theater area, because we have other priorities in life. (heck I don't even have cable/satellite TV) It would be nice to have an affordable option to watch movies when we wish to.

Re:Excellent

[Luthwyhn]

More like "playing card size" than "credit card size" but yeah,

No, actually it's EXACTLY credit card sized. Here's picture proof.

Re:Excellent

[EdZ]

Because unless you build an entire x86 architecture HTPC, any little desktop streamer box is going to be SOC based. Which will inevitable have a really crappy selection of codec compatibilities and will likely baulk at multiple audio tracks and suck at rendering soft-subtitles. And Ordered Chapter support in MKV will either be nonexistant or just cause hard-lockups.
Not only does the RasPi's SOC handle Level 4.1 h.264, because it's running the eminently hackable XBMC you are likely to be able to play a much wider range of unusual codecs and containers than you would otherwise. Not to mention being able to hack the hardware itself to do other things like home automation.

It's a good mix of the "I can make it do anything I want" nature of a full-blown HTPC, but with the vastly lower cost and smaller footprint of a streaming box. With the caveats that it cannot double as a gaming machine, and cannot host an internal HDD (apart from a USB2 caddy).

Re:Excellent

[Svartalf]

The R-Pi is being made with a chip that's intended to be a head on a remote monitor (Hint: The same SoC is the one used in the Roku2 series set-tops...)- if you're trying to record, you're using the wrong device- and an AMD E-350's of debatable value unless you're using a hardware encoder (which then negates the need for the "higher performance" device...) you're going to probably want a much more powerful "gamer" desktop machine to do the transcode/encode work properly.

Re:Excellent

[Joce640k]

Ummm, that's just the PCB. The finished Pi has connectors sticking out from all sides. Some of them are about 1cm long. Here's picture proof.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

If you listened to the video you would hear the narrator say that the 8 fps indicator is wrong. If you watched the video (of the video) you would see that it is obviously playing back at a frame rate greater than 8 fps.

Re:Excellent

[wagnerrp]

I'm not saying this should be used for recording, but rather refuting hairyfeet's claim that the reasons it shouldn't are because it doesn't have enough power to record. It has plenty of power to do the basic data copy needed to record, it just doesn't have the power to do all the ancillary tasks that go along with being an HTPC.

Re:Excellent

[c 0xFF]

However, the SD card won't stick out that much on production boards. They had supplier issues for the first batch and used these as a workaround.

That said, you're right that only the PCB fits the "credit card" dimensions.

Re:Excellent

[BLKMGK]

Do note that XBMC does NOT support ordered Chapters. I've asked for it but apparently ffmpeg needs to update to support it and they (ffmpeg) refuse for "security reasons"?! I want it so I can rip BD that have multiple cuts and create just one vid but cannot currently get XBMC to allow me to select "tracks". Likewise XBMC won't do MKV menus so far as I know - not that I know how to make them lol.

I happen to use XBMC on Atom\ION hardware. Under $300, full blown Linux installs, plays anything I throw at it (many of my movies hit 11meg bitrates), and I draw no more than 25watts at full tilt. I can mount my ION systems to the back of my TV if I wish, some of them even came with mounts for that purpose (Zotac).

The Raspberry pi on the other hand draws a whopping 2 watts though so it's even better but it sounds like other codec than H.264 could be a problem, I'd like to see a longer demo with higher bitrate video too - say "killa' sample" for instance. Yeah it's a crappy clip but if it can play that it's doing pretty good :-)

Re:Excellent

[makapuf]

It indeed can serve as a gaming machine. I'm sure emulators will get ported for simple / fun games plus it'd be great to see humble games on it aaaaannd quake 3 runs at 30fps at 1080p iirc ....

Re:Excellent

[BLKMGK]

Umm, XBMC doesn't record either. Neither does Plex or Boxee. However all of them offer experiences better than many of the cheap "streamer" boxes in my experience. Most of us have a central machine recording video to a storage server and small machines as STB at our TV playing back recorded video. The XBMC Headend branch is designed for this I believe - I've not yet tried it out. IMO you shouldn't be using a CPU to do the compression when recording anyway, aren't your tuners supposed to be doing this? You shouldn't need a monster HTPC at each TV for recording, just one in the basement.

This box only draws about 2watts. A HTPC with a full blown CPU will draw far more, this box is perfect to mount on, in, or under a TV somewhere. I'd like to see it play higher bitrate video and other CODEC though before I get too excited. I've already got ION hardware serving my needs and won't switch just for a new toy but this would still be fun to play with and I can see several things it might be good for if not XBMC in my particular home. This may be a good solution though for people who have yet to buy hardware - it's cheap!

Impressive hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

The big news is that the GPU on the Raspberry Pi doubles the performance the iPhone 4S -- on a board that costs a fraction of the iPhone. Now that's impressive.

Re:Impressive hardware

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Eh? As far as I know the Pi maxes out at 1080p30, which is the same as the 4S.

Re:Impressive hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

What on earth are we talking about here? Is it the ability to display a UI, or the ability to decode H.264 at that resolution? They are very different things.

Re:Impressive hardware

[chrb]

There is more to GPU performance than the ability to decode 1080p H264. I believe the OP is referring to this story: $25 Raspberry Pi packs 2x iPhone 4S GPU performance, roasts Tegra 2

Forget teaching kids how to program; the $25 Raspberry Pi computer might just be the home entertainment STB and compact gaming console we’ve been waiting for. The low-cost computer – and its $35 sibling – should deliver double the graphical performance of the iPhone 4S, according to executive director (and Broadcom SoC architect) Eben Upton, telling Digital Foundry that not only does the BCM2835 GPU at the heart of the Raspberry Pi roast Apple’s latest smartphone, but it thoroughly whups NVIDIA’s Tegra 2.

Re:Impressive hardware

[ifrag]

Is it the ability to display a UI, or the ability to decode H.264 at that resolution

For that matter, which H.264 profile? Is it just CBP (Constrained Baseline Profile) or BP? If it can decode the same H.264 my Windows box does, then it would be quite impressive, but I just don't see how that would be possible at this price and current generation hardware.

Re:Impressive hardware

[rograndom]

Um... The Raspberry Pi is also missing a touch screen, 16gb of flash, more memory, wifi, bluetooth, 3g radio, camera, battery, decent battery life and a nice shell to wrap it all up in. But all of those things are free, right? I could find a dozen GPUs that put the iPhone 4S to shame and are cheaper, but we're not really comparing the same thing, are we?

Re:Impressive hardware

[Rebelgecko]

Don't forget the "phone" part of the iPhone :p

Re:Impressive hardware

[chrb]

I could find a dozen GPUs that put the iPhone 4S to shame and are cheaper

You are missing the point. Can you find a dozen that are part of a fully functional computer that costs $25?

Re:Impressive hardware

[Rakishi]

And probably sucks up five times the power that the iphone GPU does. Amazing what you can do when you don't have to deal with trying to get 7 hours of run time out of a 5watt-hour battery.

Re:Impressive hardware

[rograndom]

I could find a dozen GPUs that put the iPhone 4S to shame and are cheaper

You are missing the point. Can you find a dozen that are part of a fully functional computer that costs $25?

Are you saying that the Raspberry Pi is as fully functional as an iPhone 4S? If not, then you're completely missing my point.

Let's put this another way:

There's a new kit car announced. It has a 100cc engine and a small frame attached to four wheels. This "car" gets 100mpg and costs $500. It has no seats, no steering wheel, no roof, no doors, no airbags, no windshield, etc.

Is it fair to compare this "car" in terms of fuel economy and price to a brand new Corolla or F150?

If someone starts going on about "It's a fraction of the cost and gets 4x the economy! That's the real story here!" Wouldn't you think they were a little nuts?

Re:Impressive hardware

[19thNervousBreakdown]

High profile good enough for ya?

I am absolutely drooling over this thing.

Re:Impressive hardware

[vlm]

Let's put this another way:

There's a new kit car announced. It has a 100cc engine and a small frame attached to four wheels. This "car" gets 100mpg and costs $500. It has no seats, no steering wheel, no roof, no doors, no airbags, no windshield, etc.

Is it fair to compare this "car" in terms of fuel economy and price to a brand new Corolla or F150?

If someone starts going on about "It's a fraction of the cost and gets 4x the economy! That's the real story here!" Wouldn't you think they were a little nuts?

No I'd think they're freaking geniuses.

You screwed up the standard /. car analogy. Cross out the bit about the 4 wheels and no seat, and you've basically described a moped or motorcycle. Pretty exciting news, if that whole giant and exciting market had never existed until right now. This is like living in day 1 of the Harley Davidson corporation, or day 1 of Vespa. Thaaaats why they're geniuses, not because they invented yet another car model, but they're inventing entire new vehicular industry categories.

Re:Impressive hardware

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Argh, I must have messed up some HTML:

Specs

Re:Impressive hardware

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Considering that XBMC doesn't run on the iPhone, I assumed he was talking about video decoding. Given other posts in the thread, I'm not so sure anymore.

Re:Impressive hardware

[HarrySquatter]

How is he missing the point? The iPhone 4S is more expensive due to having many more features than the Pi (touchscreen, gps, cell radio, wifi, internal storage, more RAM, Bluetooth, wifi, built-in camera, etc.). Also it's GPU is constrained by power restrictions due to battery life. Comparing the two is dishonestdishonest and not analogous.

Also the only reason this can be sold art $25 is heavy subsidizing by Broadcom. Again making this a dishonest comparison.

Re:Impressive hardware

[SuperSlacker64]

It has a phone app now? Man, it really can do everything!

Re:Impressive hardware

[sglewis100]

Considering that XBMC doesn't run on the iPhone, I assumed he was talking about video decoding. Given other posts in the thread, I'm not so sure anymore.

You need to be jailbroken, but yes it does.

Re:Impressive hardware

[viperidaenz]

Its not fair to call an F150 a car. It's more like a hunk of metal Americans buy to augment their penis

Re:Impressive hardware

[viperidaenz]

The only mention of it being subsidised is when comparing it to an average development board. dev boards usually make a tidy profit, the $25 raspberry pi makes almost none - still above cost price though, so technically not subsidised.

Re:Impressive hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, now lets add the touch screen, accelerometer, gps, dual cameras, etc and package it in the same form factor, add in a responsive os/apps. If the price still comes out to a fraction, yes its impressive.

Re:Impressive hardware

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

This American has an F-150 and I spent several hours last week towing smaller cars out of a snow drift. The gas mileage isn't great, but it has 4 wheel drive and can haul a decent amount. For a recent home buyer it's a godsend. I have my small fuel-efficient car for most types of travel. But when the snow piles up or I need to move something (or somebody else needs me to), I'm damned glad that I have that truck. Use the right tool for the job.

Re:Impressive hardware

[viperidaenz]

I wish my phone last 7 hours!.

On a serious note the raspberry pi would last 3 hours on a 5 watthour battery at full power consumption. It was not optimised for low power, low cost was the bigger issue so it uses cheaper linear voltage regulators to drop the 5v input to the internal 3.3, 2.5 and 1.8v rails.

Re:Impressive hardware

[wagnerrp]

The big news is that the CPU on the iPhone 4S is a good 6-7x faster than that on this Raspberry Pi, so it comes down to optimizing the device for the tasks you intend for it to perform.

Re:Impressive hardware

[c 0xFF]

Back of the envelope calculations:

The iPhone 4 battery is 5.25 Whr at 3.7V. The Raspberry Pi draws 300mA peak. Let's be pessimistic and assume that's the constant draw for XBMC video decoding. At 5V, that's 1.5W, which will give about 3.5 hrs of battery life. I'd bet you'd actually see closer to 4 hours in real-life tests. SD or 720p video would probably see even lower power consumption.

So, how does the iPhone do? Real-world examinations of Apple's claim of "up to 10 hours" for playing video are hard to find. Apple's tests were done with a video from iTunes: 640×480 resolution, so this is hardly a fair comparison. PCWorld found the life to be about 6 hours for 720p video, but that includes the power from the display (at full brightness) and wifi. (The iPhone has had battery life issues because of an OS problem, just to complicate things a bit).

So, the Raspberry Pi compares pretty well. I would love to see someone make a fair test here: play an HD video over HDMI for both devices and measure the power consumption. The Raspberry Pi will draw more current, probably, but not nearly as much as you might think.

Re:Impressive hardware

[sjames]

You seem to be one of the rare people who uses a truck as a truck. Most people with a truck/SUV never use it as anything but a passenger car. They wouldn't even think of doing anything that actually needs 4WD because that might nick the paintjob.

Re:Impressive hardware

[rograndom]

Let's put this another way:

There's a new kit car announced. It has a 100cc engine and a small frame attached to four wheels. This "car" gets 100mpg and costs $500. It has no seats, no steering wheel, no roof, no doors, no airbags, no windshield, etc.

Is it fair to compare this "car" in terms of fuel economy and price to a brand new Corolla or F150?

If someone starts going on about "It's a fraction of the cost and gets 4x the economy! That's the real story here!" Wouldn't you think they were a little nuts?

No I'd think they're freaking geniuses.

You screwed up the standard /. car analogy. Cross out the bit about the 4 wheels and no seat, and you've basically described a moped or motorcycle. Pretty exciting news, if that whole giant and exciting market had never existed until right now. This is like living in day 1 of the Harley Davidson corporation, or day 1 of Vespa. Thaaaats why they're geniuses, not because they invented yet another car model, but they're inventing entire new vehicular industry categories.

Right, so what I described is NOT a Harley or a Vespa, correct? You would have to add more thing to it, correct? It would also have to meet certain safety requirement which further drive up it's cost and drive down it's fuel economy. And you can see that I didn't compare it to a Harley or Vespa. I compared it to the standard 4 door family car and the standard truck. Are you saying that a Vespa really replace the standard car for a family of 4?

Are there businesses currently using iPhone 4Ss as embedded video display devices? Good dog I hope not. If so, I agree that they would save a ton of money by installing Raspberry Pi's. But they should be using AppleTVs in that case instead, which is a better comparison. How much is it to add on wifi, ir receiver / remote, and 8gb of flash to the Raspberry Pi? The cost is about the same and while the Raspberry Pi has a better GPU, the AppleTV has a much better CPU.

For the record I think the Raspberry Pi is an amazing piece of technology, but saying that it beats the iPhone 4S in performance and cost when it cannot do ANYTHING out of the box without buying additional parts (it's runs XBMC, great! Are LCD displays free with purchase of the Pi?) is very misguided statement.

Re:Impressive hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

The Videocore 4 on the 2835 uses less power and less die area than the GPU in the iPhone4S.

Re:Impressive hardware

[bill_mcgonigle]

You seem to be one of the rare people who uses a truck as a truck.

It's probably safe to assume that if a Slashdotter has a truck, it's a truck.

'96 Chevy K-1500 here - I plow snow, tow hay, and haul rock and cow shit with it.

Subaru Forester for the day job.

Re:Impressive hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

A subsidized product would imply that Broadcom are selling below cost. They are not. They are selling at a cost that would normally be reserved for very large quantity sales (in the millions) - so they are still making money on each chip. Therefore, not subsidized, just a good price.

The GPU comparison is valid - the same GPU is used in other mobile devices and it has the lowest wattage/power capability of any mobile GPU currently available. It's power consumption is less than the GPU in the iPhone4 for the same operations (encode, decode, 3D, camera ISP etc).

Re:Impressive hardware

[Svartalf]

It's the same SoC that the Roku2 uses...it handles high profile.

Re:Impressive hardware

[MichaelSmith]

Yeah the funniest for me is a brand new land rover with all the mod cons inside. NIce seats. Video and sound system. And a snorkel attached to the engine air intake so it can draw air from the level of the roof. A friend of mine has a picture of him doing to that in a real four wheel drive, but the interior is actually submersible, ie, no expensive electronics.

Re:Impressive hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

No offense, but you don't know much about mobile graphics if you think the Tegra 2 is in the same ballpark, performance wise, as the PowerVR 543MP2 in the A5... If beats the Tegra 3 thoroughly, and the Tegra 3 is supposed to be 3x as fast as its predecessor: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5163/asus-eee-pad-transformer-prime-nvidia-tegra-3-review/3

Re:Impressive hardware

[Toonol]

In some very important ways, the Raspberry Pi is more functional than an Apple IPhone 4S.

Which is more functional? A Playstation 3 or a desktop IBM PC from 1998? The PS3 is far more powerful, and can do many tasks that old PC couldn't. But the old PC is a general purpose machine; in a sense, it is nearly infinitely more functional than a deliberately limited single-purpose device.

(Yes, I know you can jailbreak an IPhone. That doesn't change the purpose of the device.)

Re:Impressive hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

> Can you find a dozen that are part of a fully functional computer that costs $25?

Can you show me a $25 fully-functional computer?

HINT: The RPi isn't available yet. And when available, the variant with a network interface will be at least $35.

No NIC, no HID, no DVI-out; that's not a functional computer.

Re:Impressive hardware

[funfail]

It has HDMI-out and USB interface for HID.

Who says you need a NIC to make it a "functional computer"?

Re:Impressive hardware

[Xest]

OMG, someone mentioned the iPhone, quick fanboys, jump into knee jerk defensive reaction mode!

No one's bitching about the iPhone, he's just pointing out it's a lot of power, for not very much money. If you read more into it than that it says more about what kind of rabid irrational volatile fanboy you are than anything he said.

"The usb *mumble*"?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's in the second USB port again now?

Re:"The usb *mumble*"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Keyboard.

Re:"The usb *mumble*"?

[advocate_one]

What's in the second USB port again now?

That's the power input socket... taking advantage of the ready availability of walwarts and other adaptors that provide a ready supply over the USB socket input...

Re:"The usb *mumble*"?

[IAmGarethAdams]

Hint: In parts of the video you hear a tappy-tappy sound as he navigates around the media centre.

Decoding

[zAPPzAPP]

That is pretty cool.
I have a HTPC that does that for 10x the price. But even my box needs to use gpu hardware (an Ion2) to play back 720p h264 files fluently (those come in .mkv containers usually).
This demo shows .mov files and I don't know how much decoding is required for playing back those files. All I know is, .mov files tend to be really big.
So will the Raspberry be able to play common file formats, or will you have to encode everything in .mov beforehand?

Re:Decoding

[slim]

The Raspberry Pi's GPU has h264 decoding in it.

Re:Decoding

[Joce640k]

Can the hardware really only manage 8-10 frames/sec. or is that their software?

Re:Decoding

[Anonymous Coward]

MOV is a container format, like MKV. The GPU firmware supports hardware decoding of H264 video (and probably other formats too, but that depends on licensing costs). The ARM core takes the H264 video data from the container stream and hands it over to the GPU for decoding. How the video was packaged doesn't concern the GPU. The H264 decoder delivers 30fps at 1080p.

The GPU can also encode H264 up to 1080p at 30fps, but the required software will not be available at launch. The Raspberry Pi team plans to offer camera add-ons which will make use of that capability later.

Re:Decoding

[Anonymous Coward]

Could be both. If the software is poorly written it won't run well even on good hardware; alternatively, if the hardware isn't powerful enough, even the most efficiently coded software won't produce acceptable results.

Re:Decoding

[Anonymous Coward]

No thats the point of XBMC, it plays anything. Connect it to a USB drive, or stream over a host of network mapping protocols, UPNP, SMB, NAS, cloud, http, ftp.

Re:Decoding

[Vairon]

As I understand it that is the speed of the UI updating. The video, as you can clearly see, is running at full speed.

Re:Decoding

[Anonymous Coward]

...I have a HTPC that does that for 10x the price. But even my box needs to use gpu hardware (an Ion2) to play back 720p h264 files fluently (those come in .mkv containers usually)...

If the best you're getting out of an Ion2 is 720p, then something's not configured properly. Ion2 will do 1080p h264 without breathing hard (at least under Linux).

On another note, a Popcorn Hour A-100/110/200/210 with the Sigma chips will play back full high def at about 8 watts. I'd *love* to see PCH integrate/offer the Raspberry Pi into their products, but the lack of a SATA connection will probably preclude that. Perhaps Syabas' Popbox would work, though.

Re:Decoding

[Joce640k]

"Clearly see" on a youtube video?

Maybe it's just me but I'd prefer a proper framerate displayed...

Re:Decoding

[Yvanhoe]

You can clearly see it is more than 8 fps. At least twice that.

Re:Decoding

[LaRainette]

This isn't the framerate of the video playback. It's the framerate of the UI refreshing. it's perfectly "normal" considering the OpenGL performance of the GPU. And it's also very smooth for any navigation inside the UI. You don't need 30fps on UI.

x264 specs ain't everything

[afex]

while the specs for decoding video are AWESOME (especially for the price point), what I continually point out to people is that the low CPU can still kill you on some things. I have an NVIDIA ION / Atom D330 HTPC that can destroy the 40Mbps x264 killasample absolutely no problem, yet has trouble on some of the even medium-flashy skins for XBMC.

like i said, performance/dollar this thing is still awesome, but you do still have to think of the whole package.

Re:x264 specs ain't everything

[ackthpt]

while the specs for decoding video are AWESOME (especially for the price point), what I continually point out to people is that the low CPU can still kill you on some things. I have an NVIDIA ION / Atom D330 HTPC that can destroy the 40Mbps x264 killasample absolutely no problem, yet has trouble on some of the even medium-flashy skins for XBMC.

like i said, performance/dollar this thing is still awesome, but you do still have to think of the whole package.

It's mouthwatering .. waiting is the hard part.. I want one in my car, at my desk, at work, everywhere. Do you think they'll sell these as a six pack? :)

Re:x264 specs ain't everything

[Anonymous Coward]

Not for the first batch bet after thant......

Re:x264 specs ain't everything

[Joce640k]

I'm not sure I fully understand this yet:

You're willing to spend a few thousand on a big TV and sound system but the media player can only cost $25?

Somebody please explain it to me...

Re:x264 specs ain't everything

[Anonymous Coward]

After my $3k TV, $2k receiver, $6k (each) speakers, and $400/mo cable bill, all I have left is $25.

Re:x264 specs ain't everything

[PIBM]

It's not the price, it's what you can do with it ... ;)

Re:x264 specs ain't everything

[Fallingcow]

Let me guess... you buy Monster cables?

Re:x264 specs ain't everything

[Anonymous Coward]

You're willing to spend a few thousand on a big TV and sound system but the media player can only cost $25?
Somebody please explain it to me...

Easily explainable: your premise is wacky. Very few people spend a lot of money on a TV for their car or desk. And even if it were "free", you wouldn't want a "big TV" in your car.

Re:x264 specs ain't everything

[tdelaney]

Have you tried it with XBMC Eden and dirty regions enabled? In advancedsettings.xml:

<advancedsettings>
  <gui>
    <algorithmdirtyregions>3</algorithmdirtyregions>
    <nofliptimeout>0</nofliptimeout>
  </gui>
</advancedsettings>

Another combination to try is:

<advancedsettings>
  <gui>
    <algorithmdirtyregions>1</algorithmdirtyregions>
    <nofliptimeout>1000</nofliptimeout>
  </gui>
</advancedsettings>

Re:x264 specs ain't everything

[Anonymous Coward]

If it does digital out (hdmi) and digital in (keyboard/IR) you don't need much more really that needs to cost a fortune.

TV is pricey because it's big and boost a crystal clear image.
Audio equipment is pricey because of the analogue conversion that gets send to the speaker (which are also pricey) needs to be 'purfect'.

Re:x264 specs ain't everything

[afex]

wow awesome, i never even looked into this! and yes i'm on eden.

many thanks!

Re:x264 specs ain't everything

[Joce640k]

Audio equipment is pricey because of the analogue conversion that gets send to the speaker

Don't want to start an audiophile war but I hope you spent more on your speakers than on your amplifier.

Just saying...as somebody who's set up a lot of hifi systems.

Re:x264 specs ain't everything

[LaRainette]

Yes the OpenGL perf won't be on par with a GTX 560 if that's where you are getting at, but then again I don't think someone building a HTPC for $30 will be bothered by the unibality tu use the most "flashy" XBMC skins.
As long as the UI is smooth with basic theme and 1080p playback is good I'm sold !

Re:x264 specs ain't everything

[LaRainette]

You spent a few THOUSANDS on your TV ? clearly we don't have the same TV needs... oO
I spent $500 and I have a 46inches 1080p 120Hz screen... So that little $30 HTPC will do great, k thx bye.
BTW I didn't hear any of you outraged millionaires bitch about the Apple TV2 being ONLY $99, and that proper millionaire should spend $2000 on a HTPC with SLI 590 GTX.
I mean do you sell HTPCs for a living or do you just like to complain about how awesome things are ?
Jesus christ...

Re:x264 specs ain't everything

[BLKMGK]

I think one of these in the car would be perfect actually! I hadn't thought of that use but it sure seems perfectly suited for that. I sort of gave up on a car-PC awhile back but now I might just have to think harder about it. For my home I use ION hardware but the car? Oh yeah!

Re:x264 specs ain't everything

[Anonymous Coward]

"Audio equipment is pricey because of the analogue conversion that gets send to the speaker "

What a load of nonsense. Could you people shut the hell up when you have no clue?

LTSP

[SgtChaireBourne]

So what? Come back when someone has LTSP thin clients running on the Raspberry Pi.

Re:LTSP

[Anonymous Coward]

Planning on working on it as soon as I get my hands on a few.

Re:LTSP

[Anonymous Coward]

" Planning on working on it as soon as I get my hands on a few."

You rock!

Re:LTSP

[zero0ne]

Blog / forum / area you'll be frequenting regarding this? Very VERY interested in helping test this out.

Re:LTSP

[realityimpaired]

You do know that they're shipping the things with Debian? You have an X Server, and SSH out of the box, and if you'd rather set it up as a thin client using XDMCP to log in to another system, set up your login screen to do it.

Re:LTSP

[wagnerrp]

Now if only there were a mechanism for the remote X applications to hit the hardware decoders available to the local X server, so you weren't trying to push several hundred megabit of raw video across a wireless network...

Re:LTSP

[psergiu]

http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum

Audio and video format support?

[JDG1980]

I know that the Raspberry Pi is specifically advertised as supporting hardware decoding of H.264 up to 1080p30 at up to 40 Mbps. What I want to know is if it also supports VC-1 and MPEG-2 decoding at the same resolutions and data rates. I know that the underlying SoC has this capability, but will it be blocked or omitted from the SDK for licensing/patent reasons? Any of these three codecs can be found on Blu-Rays, and transcoding the rips to H.264 would reduce the quality.

Also, what about bitstreaming the HD audio codecs (Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA) over HDMI 1.3? I know Raspberry Pi didn't want to pay for audio decoding licenses, but simply sending the raw bitstream to a receiver over the HDMI link shouldn't present any licensing issues (and is the best quality method to use anyway).

For the Raspberry Pi to be a good media streamer, it needs to be able to do these things.

Re:Audio and video format support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah right, go tell that to Roku.

Besides, it wasn't made to compete with HTPC's. It's an educational tool that also works shockingly well as a media device.

Re:Audio and video format support?

[euxneks]

The best way to find an answer to this is to ask in the raspi forums here: http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum

Re:Audio and video format support?

[chrb]

My understanding is that the GPU supports hardware decoding of xvid/mpeg2/h264 etc. The issue is licensing the patents from MPEG-LA. The cost of licensing a codec is too high to license them all for every Pi sold: the cost of licensing AAC alone is 4% of the total price of the board. So, either there will be a hardware version that comes with all the codecs (and costs a lot more), or there will a software codec pack that you can pay to download. Either way, the codecs are going to be leaked eventually, so I guess the solution for most people will be the familar Linux "user run codec install script" that fetches the codecs from some random server so the distro isn't responsible. Commercial media players based on Pi hardware will have to pay for the licenses.

Re:Audio and video format support?

[Anonymous Coward]

...Also, what about bitstreaming the HD audio codecs (Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA) over HDMI 1.3?...

You'd have to consult the datasheet to determine if the device supports those features. Oh wait, there is NO public information, other than an advertising blurb, about this device. Good luck getting any info from Broadcom.

Re:Audio and video format support?

[JDG1980]

The issue is licensing the patents from MPEG-LA. The cost of licensing a codec is too high to license them all for every Pi sold: the cost of licensing AAC alone is 4% of the total price of the board. So, either there will be a hardware version that comes with all the codecs (and costs a lot more), or there will a software codec pack that you can pay to download.

The problem is that the Raspberry Pi's relatively weak ARM-based CPU is almost certainly not powerful enough to decode high-bitrate 1080p VC-1 or MPEG-2 without dropping frames. Hardware decoding is the only viable option. If that's fused off, then the Pi's usefulness as a media streamer drops dramatically.

I'm not sure why they bothered paying for an AAC license, since that almost certainly can be decoded in real-time by software, and an open-source implementation (ffmpeg) is readily available.

If the base-model Pi doesn't support VC-1 and MPEG-2, hopefully they'll consider releasing a more expensive version that supports all the codecs the SoC contains implementation for. Even if it shot the price up to the $75-$100 range it would still be cheaper than any decent dedicated streamer (or HTPC).

Re:Audio and video format support?

[Anonymous Coward]

AAC is not licenced - too expensive. That decoding is done on the Arm.

What _exactly_ does "1080p support" mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really - does this mean is has a level 4 H.264 decoder, up to 720p60 or 1080p30? Does it mean it can play _something_ at that resolution? Does it mean it can simply display it, like as a desktop or similar?

Forgive me for being overly technical here, but I work with a lot of different video codecs and standards, and saying "hardware 1080p support" is pretty damn meaningless.

I know that the video answers my question, but I just wish the summary was more clear.

Re:What _exactly_ does "1080p support" mean?

[19thNervousBreakdown]

1080p30 H.264 AVC High Profile Level 4.1

Video stutter

[Aladrin]

It stutters a bit when he plays the muppets. My linux box has trouble with 1080p video and IIRC it's quite a bit more powerful than a R-Pi. I'll be waiting to see some serious reviews before I look to use this as an HTPC.

Re:Video stutter

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's because the frame rate isn't matched. This is always going to be a problem if you don't match the framerate you send via HDMI to the framerate of the video file you're playing. And it's hard to get right, since there's multiple standards:

23.97 fps
24 fps
25 fps
29.97 fps
30 fps

And not everything can just "sync" to what you want, even if it accepts the input stream. Especially if you're not dealing with a projector.

Re:Video stutter

[drinkypoo]

And not everything can just "sync" to what you want, even if it accepts the input stream. Especially if you're not dealing with a projector.

My LCD TV will take a whole bunch of sync rates but my DLP projector takes only a pretty narrow range.

Can someone explain...

[Anonymous Coward]

how something like this is running full HD with nary a studder, while something like an Atom netbook with crunchbang linux studders?

Re:Can someone explain...

[Anonymous Coward]

gpu acceleration. its the same reason the old xbox version of XBMC worked so well. it uses gpu hardware.

Re:Can someone explain...

[John Jamieson]

Yes, Intel has traditionally been weak at producing good graphics processors, and even weaker at good drivers. This chip does a good job of the math in the GPU section.

Re:Can someone explain...

[Anonymous Coward]

Which GPGPU and which hardware-assisted codec?

E.g. - I find that vdpau codecs and nvidia hardware on netbooks and similar systems works, but almost anything else does not.

It's not about powerful graphics hardware as much as software support for the graphics hardware for a particular use case, e.g. h.264 decode.

Re:Can someone explain...

[LaRainette]

My laptop stutters with 1080p with a 2.2Ghz dual core P8600, yet it plays perfectly smooth on an atom 330+nVidia ION.
"Most modern" GPU have hardware decoders (nVidia calls it Purevideo, ATI Unified Video Decoder) and most ARM SoC have those too.
So to be even clearer there is a very small and efficient piece of dedicated silicon chip that can decode 1080p h.264, and that particular sub-device has proper support undeer XBMC right now => WIN !

Re:Can someone explain...

[LaRainette]

You are right it isn't about powerfull hardware. The part (hardware) that does the video decoding is a seperate deicated hardware chip. So your GTX 590 and your GT540 have the exact same video decoding capabilities, because they have the same Pure Video chip.

XBMC on Roku?

[Anonymous Coward]

While the R-Pi looks great, this news is more exciting to me because the Roku 2 is almost identical, hardware-wise, to the R-Pi (but with the addition of Wifi, and an IR sensor) so i'm hoping that an alternative firmware for the Roku including XBMC will make an appearance soon.

Re:XBMC on Roku?

[LaRainette]

Another way of saying what you just said is :
"I find it pretty cool that some people bust their ass off to make such awesome open hardware and support open software (XBMC). So in that light I'm going to give all my money to their competitors who chose the closed model and lock the shit out of their product, and then I'll pray for someone to hack it, to put on it the very same software I would have used on the R-Pi, just because I'm an inconsistent asshole."
There translated that for you.

Good News, Everyone

[Xupa]

Now all those impoverished kids whose lives can be revolutionized by a $25 pc can watch TED Talks and Khan Academy on... their... HDMI... TV's....

Re:Good News, Everyone

[ZeroSumHappiness]

It also supports composite out.

Re:Good News, Everyone

[Svartalf]

Not to mention that this wasn't intended for the same audience as OLPC was aiming for (Not that you couldn't manage to do that... An HDMI capable monitor worth messing with this device will only set someone back ~$99 retail plus the cost of an HDMI to DVI cable for about $20...) It was for providing a brutally inexpensive computer for teaching Computer Science to the "FIRST" world that could be priced as cheap or cheaper than the textbooks for the classes.

Not all things are immediately intended for "the third world" when it's trying to be made cheaply. Stupid to presume it, really. The fact that it could possibly done that way is just the cherry on top of everything else.

Re:Not a good promo

[Grizzley9]

My bad, it was just a preview. I await my thorough lashing.

Re:Not a good promo

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a free, legal trailer.

Re:Not a good promo

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod this up! Way Way up!!!

Nothing like showing that a device can (will) be used for copyright infringement before it's even on the market.

Re:Not a good promo

[Anonymous Coward]

When they played it, it seemed to just be a trailer, not the film.

Re:Not a good promo

[Kurlon]

Look at the file sizes, those are all trailers which are available legally online.

Re:Not a good promo

[ZeroSumHappiness]

Re-posting something an AC said: That's the trailer.

Re:Not a good promo

[rrohbeck]

Did you notice that it's a 173MB preview?

BeagleBone already does this, and it's real

[Animats]

There are lots of little single-board computers at low price points. It's not just Arduno and Basic Stamp machines any more. The BeagleBone, at $89, is available now. Runs Linux on an ARM chip.

The Raspberry PI $25 price is vaporware until they ship in quantity. Remember OLPC. They never made their $100 price point.

Re:BeagleBone already does this, and it's real

[lobiusmoop]

BeagleBone doesn't even come with any video-out connector as standard so probably not the best solution in this instance. More likely Beagleboard or Pandaboard for higher $.

Chinese New Year celebrations likely delaying Raspberry Pi ETA by a week or 2 I guess, but not long now....

Re:BeagleBone already does this, and it's real

[scharkalvin]

True but it's easy to interface a touch screen LCD to the Beagle Bone.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/104712705716996155416/posts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ps47MOHF9x8

Re:BeagleBone already does this, and it's real

[Svartalf]

BeagleBone's how much more? Besides...the OLPC's problem was they aimed high. This beastie's down to roughly the pricepoint in question. Not for profit, remember. And...the devices are very much a first cousin to a device that retails for $99 or less for the mid-range and basic models- that plays back things like Hulu, Netflix, etc. BoM costs place the Roku2 series devices right down into the price-point of the R-Pi...and the only real differences are possibly a bit of POP RAM profile and a few different peripherals. And...we won't get into the fact that the BeagleBone's not got a direct video out on top of being more expensive.

Once you understand what's being done and with what, your thinking changes a bit.

Re:BeagleBone already does this, and it's real

[Svartalf]

Yeah...what size? And it needs a special adapter to hook to an HDMI monitor... Sorry...you're grasping at straws. Don't get me wrong, the BeagleBone's a GREAT device. So's the BeagleBoard and PandaBoard. All of them are way more expensive...and they're overkill for what's being done here and for that purpose.

They might work out for YOU, but they don't provide the stated purposes (Providing an inexpensive computer specifically intended to do comp-sci education with what's a very usable but almost utterly throwaway computer...). And it's pretty real...or XBMC wouldn't have had one in hand to actually showboat like this.

Very cool

[Frag-A-Muffin]

I love the Raspberry Pi project, and have my CC ready to order. However, this isn't that spectacular of a use for it :)
There are a ton of specialized boxes that already do it in a neat package with a proper remote. (personally I use a WD TV Live both 1st and 2nd gen).

To all those criticizing the performance, or codec support etc etc, remember this is just ONE of the many things this thing can do and it's just to show you the potential of what a $25/$35 general computing device can be made to do. The coolness of the platform is yet to come. I for one am more excited about the projects that people have not thought of yet, because they haven't gotten their hands on one yet! So much potential. So much fun to be had.

Re:Not a good promo

[jo_ham]

By playing a trailer available on Apple's site?

Mhmm.

no media center for me w/o tuner support

[frovingslosh]

Well, it is impressive and very much an accomplishment, even if you consider other limitations already pointed out. But all I see is an implementation that might provide playback support. One very important thing for me in a media center is tuner support. So until there is support for a tuner for the Raspberry Pi, I'll still need to use a PC as a media center.

XBMC uses many tuners, but depends on their drivers being installed in the OS. I don't see that happening any time soon for the R Pi. I hope I'm wrong about that, but until then this will not really serve as a media center.

Re:no media center for me w/o tuner support

[Lev13than]

XBMC uses many tuners, but depends on their drivers being installed in the OS. I don't see that happening any time soon for the R Pi. I hope I'm wrong about that, but until then this will not really serve as a media center.

It's not supposed to be a full media centre - it's a potential front end. I like the idea because I'm already running MythTv, and if this works it's $50 plus an extra screen I have lying around to put another TV in my kitchen.

Re:no media center for me w/o tuner support

[silas_moeckel]

Try a network tuner like the hd homeruns. Make a lot more sense than a tuner in every device and is thus cheaper. A single mcard cable card can do 6 streams (the HD homeruns only do 3 per card for some reason).

Codecs other than H.264

[tepples]

Which means what if your collection is partly MPEG-2, partly MPEG-4 ASP, and partly VP8?

Re:Codecs other than H.264

[BestNicksRTaken]

from what i've heard you're shit out of luck with anything hd if you're talking mpeg2 or xvid; which kills my dvb-s dream :-(

Re:Codecs other than H.264

[jo_ham]

Then the Raspberry Pi is not the ideal HTPC box for your needs?

If only I could get Netflix and Hulu on here

[na1led]

I'm assuming XBMC is running on Linux here, so streaming channels like Netflix and Hulu are out of the question. I think this is great, and lots of cool new HTPC's will come out of this, but for now it's not going to replace my ROKU.

Re:If only I could get Netflix and Hulu on here

[chill]

I run OpenELEC, which is a very stripped version of XBMC based off of Linux.

Hulu (mostly) works for me. Every once in a while something will pop up and say there is an error with a stream, but not very often. It also works on Amazon Prime for me.

I don't have Netflix, but I'm assuming unless Netflix decides to release a generic Linux client the answer is "no".

Re:If only I could get Netflix and Hulu on here

[Svartalf]

Yeah, you'd have to nab binaries off of a Roku2 somehow to accomplish the same thing...at which point, just use the Roku2...

Re:If only I could get Netflix and Hulu on here

[LaRainette]

If you do believe in the R-Pi you also do not believe in Roku. I prefer to spend 2 hours tinkering with a device I own and master to get the same result as just buying a Roku, because this sends the right message to roku : F*** off I'm not giving $100 for something I can't modify.
You're not merely a consumer... Lol.

Re:If only I could get Netflix and Hulu on here

[na1led]

Why not buy an Apple TV for $100 then? It can be jail broken, you can install XBMC, and it comes with remote and prepackaged case.

Re:If only I could get Netflix and Hulu on here

[LaRainette]

Did you read what I replied to that guy ?
I wouldn't buy an ATV2 for the exact same reason I wouldn't buy a roku, that validates the idea of Apple (and Roku) that it's better to sell a closed device.
Every single buck you spend is a vote, and the money you spend during the 4 years between each brief period of time during which you pretend to give a fuck about the world, and coincidentally choose a puppet to place in the white house, has much more influence of the world than the ballot you cast to choose the puppet.
But yes of course if I had to choose between 2 evils I'd definitely go for the ATV2+XBMC over the Roku + hypothetical XBMC maybe someday.

Re:If only I could get Netflix and Hulu on here

[na1led]

Not everyone is enthused about spending their hard earned money for political reasons. All I'm saying is that if the Raspberry Pi wants to compete in this market, they need to give us more. By the way, you can already install XBMC on an APTV.

Re:If only I could get Netflix and Hulu on here

[LaRainette]

... Whether you like it or not every dime you spend is politically significant, even when it is not politically motivated.
If you bought Nike's Shoes in the 90s you validated the idea that it is OK to make 8 years old boys from the phillipines work 14 hours a day for $1 to make shoes. Maybe you didn't care, maybe you didn't even know, maybe you thought it was a great idea or that it was the will of God or the free market, but in ANY case your money was given to Nike and to them (and to the rest of the market, and to the politician and the general public) it meant : FUCK YEAH keep doing it !
Now there are 2 simple ways to act after you realized this :
A] You can keep bitching about how you're not politically motivated (I mean WTF ? do you even know what it means ? politically motivated = motivated by the concern over the life of the community, that literally is what it means... How can you not give a fuck about the life of your community ? how can one be so brainwashed that he would think that to be concerned about others is bad ?)
Or B] you can deal with it and learn to be a grown man responsible for your actions.
And yes XBMC was ported to hte ATV2 I know, that's why it is exactly what I said on my previous post...

simply

[goldcd]

because you don't need to.
Reason I'm excited about Raspberry Pi, is that it's designed as a learning tool. I want to play, tinker, blah blah.
Reason I find XMBC on RP exciting, is that this is something I could 'theoretically' make. Now I know full well I don't stand a chance, but definitely provides some inspiration.
The really interesting thing, is that with the hardware price so low, it suddenly means you could make a physical product based upon their hardware, your software and sell it for a reasonable price. Consider how 'app-stores' suddenly allowed so many people to be produce and distribute to a large market. Limitation there, is that every one of your customers has had to fork over a large pile of cash for their hardware. I can quite easily see how I might buy a stack of RP's and just swap a dedicated app between them. XMBC for my TVs. One plugged into a drive as the NAS. Few hosting commodity webcams to make them IP enabled etc

Re:simply

[fyngyrz]

The really interesting thing, is that with the hardware price so low, it suddenly means you could make a physical product based upon their hardware, your software and sell it for a reasonable price.

Not once the FCC gets through with you, you couldn't. Just a heads up. Sorry.

Why?

[Junta]

The other major difference being the Roku device is designed to not be 'rooted' and Raspberry Pi explicitly is a 'do whatever the hell you want' project, with the latter being cheaper. Adding Wifi and a IR sensor to this is a relative cakewalk and will end up in all probability being cheaper than a Roku in addition to being more open.

Raspberry Pi Colo!

[bythescruff]

I'm waiting for the first Raspberry Pi colocation company to open - along the lines of Mac Mini Colo. But outside the USA, so there's less risk of my major hardware investment being seized by the feds - you know, for being creative on a Sunday without permission or something...

Seriously, colo could get pretty damn cheap with these little beasties.

Re:Raspberry Pi Colo!

[MichaelSmith]

How is that better than renting a VM?

Re:Raspberry Pi Colo!

[thegreatbob]

You can hold it in your hands...and as you own it longer, it actually costs you less money.

Re:Raspberry Pi Colo!

[MichaelSmith]

I mean, I could tell you I have a room full of little arm computers to rent to you but in fact they are just virtual machines and you won't know the difference. Same performance for you and less cost for me.

Re:Raspberry Pi Colo!

[Anonymous Coward]

You actually own the hardware in question. You could hold it in your hand if you so choose, if you wanted to pay for shipping.

Toyota Matrix gets me most of the way there

[Chirs]

I've got winter tires on my Matrix, haven't got stuck yet in the Canadian Prairies. It'll handle 8-foot lumber with the hatch closed, if I need sheet goods I get the store to rip them or else hook up a trailer. With the back seats down I've hauled (on separate occasions obviously) a dishwasher, a barbecue, 500lbs of bricks, three mountain bikes, a table and four chairs (not flatpacked), a hutch, and various other stuff. It's great.

For anything I can't put on the trailer behind it, I rent a cargo van.

good idea, in theory...

[Thud457]

I've tried the phone app on the iPhone. It's a hacked on kludge and a afterthought. Not ready for prime time.

Re:good idea, in theory...

[Anonymous Coward]

If they gave us cowards mod points, I'd assign some to you. *That* was funny.

Roku, Hulu, Really?

[frovingslosh]

My understanding was that the Roku would play Hulu Plus, but not basic Hulu. Do you know something different?

XBox Media Center for Home Theater PCs

[billstewart]

xbmc.org is another open-source competitor to MythTV, Tivo, etc. Apparently was originally for XBoxes but has spread beyond that.

And it'll really only fit in your pocket if you're using a small memory stick instead of a hard drive...*

...

(*No, really, there were no double-entendres intended when I wrote that, but they just wrote themselves anyway.....)

Re:XBox Media Center for Home Theater PCs

[SJHillman]

It has an SD card slot and networking... no hard drive or memory stick needed