Just finished building an awesome Raspberry Pi media center

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Just finished building an awesome Raspberry Pi media center - an interest?

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#680910 3-Sep-2012 15:40

timmmay:
reven:

the motorola remote is designed for xbmc, it has a flip keyboard on the back which is awesome.

it has IR + RF, for IR it can learn your tv remote and you can push a button to toggle between RF (which is for xbmc) and IR.

it really is the best remote ive ever used with a media centre (ive used a lot). the keyboard comes in handy a lot too.

personally i would buy directly from pulse-eight.com, both mine arrived in about 4 working days using the cheapest shipping (around usd$8 i believe)

I already have the Harmony with the touch screen, and the girlfriend likes that it turns everything on for her, so I'll probably try to stick with that. That one looks pretty handy, but without remote support I might not bother with the Pi.

sure the harmony is nice, and the touch screen is a nice feature. but with CEC ideally you should be able to turn to switch the the pi and have your recevier etc all turn to the correct channel etc.

the selling points of the motorola remote is
- RF, so you can plug it into your pi, strap the pi to the back of the tv/receiver with no line of sight and use the remote
- Keyboard, it has a full keyboard so really helpful for searching movies/youtube, entering data in xbmc, passwords, smb shares etc.
- Designed for XBMC so no setup required, just plugin it in and youre off. (personally i customized a few buttons though)

xarqi

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#680934 3-Sep-2012 16:07

I mentioned it in passing above, but with this discussion of remotes it bears repeating. I'm just going to use the official XBMC remote app for my android phone. I've tried it to control XBMC running on my iMac as a dry run for the Rpi, and it does the business. One big plus that none of the other options mentioned offer is album and movie art, reviews, etc on the remote!

timmmay

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#680947 3-Sep-2012 16:33

reven: sure the harmony is nice, and the touch screen is a nice feature. but with CEC ideally you should be able to turn to switch the the pi and have your recevier etc all turn to the correct channel etc.

the selling points of the motorola remote is
- RF, so you can plug it into your pi, strap the pi to the back of the tv/receiver with no line of sight and use the remote
- Keyboard, it has a full keyboard so really helpful for searching movies/youtube, entering data in xbmc, passwords, smb shares etc.
- Designed for XBMC so no setup required, just plugin it in and youre off. (personally i customized a few buttons though)

Thanks for the thoughts :)

I don't need to search, I just need to nagivate and play, so a standard remote will be fine. Good to know about the Motorola one though, looks quite good.

I found info about XBMC remotes here, and harmony remotes in particular here, with IR receivers here.

It looks like it'd cost about $150 to get Raspberry Pi set up, with power, remote stuff, case, etc. I could sell the PS3 for about $200, maybe $250. So it's not worth doing for cost, for me. If I was starting fresh, definitely, and as project, very fun :)

floydbloke

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#680949 3-Sep-2012 16:37

timmmay: Can anyone recommend a suitable micro usb power supply, ideally in NZ? Element 14 are out of their recommended one.

I've only had a brief fling with XBMC on my RaspberryPi (don't really have a use for it, but just wanted to try it out to see if it would work...it did) and successfully used the TV's USB port to power the Pi.
Opportunity perhaps to save money and one less wall-wart.

Did Eric Clapton really think she looked wonderful...or was it after the 15th outfit she tried on and he just wanted to get to the party and get a drink?

timmmay

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#680952 3-Sep-2012 16:39

floydbloke:
timmmay: Can anyone recommend a suitable micro usb power supply, ideally in NZ? Element 14 are out of their recommended one.

I've only had a brief fling with XBMC on my RaspberryPi (don't really have a use for it, but just wanted to try it out to see if it would work...it did) and successfully used the TV's USB port to power the Pi.
Opportunity perhaps to save money and one less wall-wart.

Great idea! I was already using the TV USB to turn on a fan via a solid state relay, adding other cable's easy enough.

Next time I install a TV onto a wall I'll put a much larger pipe for cables in though.

xarqi

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#680956 3-Sep-2012 16:49

Is the TV's port live when the TV isn't? I suspect not. That won't be a problem if it's just movies you are watching, but could be if it's music that you are playing. I may try driving my Rpi from the USB port of my Onkyo 609 though, since whatever I'm using it for (in 'production' anyway), the AVR will be on to process its output, be it aydio or video. There may still be a case for a separate power supply though, so library updates, etc, can be done without powering up anything else.

bener

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#680957 3-Sep-2012 16:51

timmmay:
reven: sure the harmony is nice, and the touch screen is a nice feature. but with CEC ideally you should be able to turn to switch the the pi and have your recevier etc all turn to the correct channel etc.

the selling points of the motorola remote is
- RF, so you can plug it into your pi, strap the pi to the back of the tv/receiver with no line of sight and use the remote
- Keyboard, it has a full keyboard so really helpful for searching movies/youtube, entering data in xbmc, passwords, smb shares etc.
- Designed for XBMC so no setup required, just plugin it in and youre off. (personally i customized a few buttons though)

Thanks for the thoughts :)

I don't need to search, I just need to nagivate and play, so a standard remote will be fine. Good to know about the Motorola one though, looks quite good.

I found info about XBMC remotes here, and harmony remotes in particular here, with IR receivers here.

It looks like it'd cost about $150 to get Raspberry Pi set up, with power, remote stuff, case, etc. I could sell the PS3 for about $200, maybe $250. So it's not worth doing for cost, for me. If I was starting fresh, definitely, and as project, very fun :)

I'd have to agree with you there, if you do decide to get one for a project drop me a line - I'm aiming to get a robust-as-possible setup happening soon so I can let you know what I'm running.

Going to test out XBian this eve too.

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floydbloke

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#680962 3-Sep-2012 17:02

xarqi: Is the TV's port live when the TV isn't? I suspect not. ...

Good point, I didn't get that far. Something to consider if I ever get serious about it though.

Did Eric Clapton really think she looked wonderful...or was it after the 15th outfit she tried on and he just wanted to get to the party and get a drink?

nickb800

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#680973 3-Sep-2012 17:25

floydbloke:
xarqi: Is the TV's port live when the TV isn't? I suspect not. ...

Good point, I didn't get that far. Something to consider if I ever get serious about it though.

Depends - For instance my Sony 40CX520 present power all of the time, even on standby, but magic TV decoder provides power on USB only when switched. Both have their uses, just trial and error to see which of your devices do what

timmmay

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#680991 3-Sep-2012 18:12

My Samsung LCD only has power on the USB ports when the TV's turned on.

bener

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#681001 3-Sep-2012 18:35

Update: XBian running now instead of rasbpmc - noticeably faster on menus etc.

Have removed external HDD, accessing files over the ethernet LAN to my main PC, streaming 1080p files without a hitch.

Haven't found a video file that failed yet, mp4 works fine, h264 works great.

Streaming HD YouTube and Vimeo seems to work better than my PC (less buffering).

All good thus far...

Skolink

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#681017 3-Sep-2012 20:19

Bener are you using CEC to control the RasPi with your Samsung TV remote?

Johnk

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#681022 3-Sep-2012 21:01

This definitely looks like a cool lil project, I will be following this thread and am interested in a unit.

timmmay

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#681024 3-Sep-2012 21:03

Has anyone considered one of the other similar systems popping up? I can't remember names, but there are a few more powerful systems out or coming out, twice as fast at least, but at a higher price. Would they be worthwhile for a media center? Then again if you're really worried about that, just buy a commercial media center.

lchiu7

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#681044 3-Sep-2012 21:28

I currently use a Popcorn Hour A200 which plays everything I throw at it so my interest is more academic than otherwise. But out of interest does the unit play content with HD Audio such as Dolby True HD or DTS HD Master, passing the audio through the HDMI as bitstream?

I tend to rip all my BD content preserving the lossless audio which the PCH can play fine. Also what about multichannel FLAC?

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