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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."
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.
No, I'm just happy to see you.
That is pretty cool. .mkv containers usually). .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. .mov beforehand?
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
This demo shows
So will the Raspberry be able to play common file formats, or will you have to encode everything in
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.
So what? Come back when someone has LTSP thin clients running on the Raspberry Pi.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
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...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
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.
Hint: In parts of the video you hear a tappy-tappy sound as he navigates around the media centre.
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!
XBMC | Pulse-Eight
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.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
gpu acceleration. its the same reason the old xbox version of XBMC worked so well. it uses gpu hardware.
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.
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....
My bad, it was just a preview. I await my thorough lashing.
Re-posting something an AC said: That's the trailer.
Did you notice that it's a 173MB preview?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
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.
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.
No sig today...
It has an H.264 hardware decoder.
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.
One thing I know, and that is that I am ignorant...
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.
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
By playing a trailer available on Apple's site?
Mhmm.
Its credit card sized.
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.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
1080p30 H.264 AVC High Profile Level 4.1
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
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)
Good-bye
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.
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.
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
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
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.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Which means what if your collection is partly MPEG-2, partly MPEG-4 ASP, and partly VP8?
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.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
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.
One thing I know, and that is that I am ignorant...
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).
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.
More like "playing card size" than "credit card size" but yeah,
No, actually it's EXACTLY credit card sized. Here's picture proof.
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.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
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).
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.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
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.
No sig today...
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
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.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
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.
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.
Chuck Norris: Socialism == a thousand years of darkness.
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.
I've tried the phone app on the iPhone. It's a hacked on kludge and a afterthought. Not ready for prime time.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
My understanding was that the Roku would play Hulu Plus, but not basic Hulu. Do you know something different?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
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.....)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
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.
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 !
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.
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.
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 :-)
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
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 ....
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!
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org