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Forums › Home Theatre › Raspberry Pi and XBMC/Android 4.0 ICS as media player?


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Topic # 106944 3-Aug-2012 09:35 Send private message

So the Raspberry Pi can almost run Android 4, and XMBC has been ported to Android. Could this be the ideal low budget media player? I understand it can do 720p but 1080p is a bit much for it, which is fine for me.

Add a case, plug it in to power, ethernet, and HDMI, find some way to control it perhaps with a Harmony remote, no need for a big expensive power hungry PS3 any more?




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  Reply # 666728 3-Aug-2012 09:38 Send private message

you would be better off just running xbmc on a debian based OS like openelec or raspbmc, would be faster.

xbmc on android is cooler for stuff like the mk802 or the upcoming ouya



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  Reply # 666735 3-Aug-2012 09:47 Send private message

Good point, it may be faster. They're both effectively linux though, Android just has a nice interface that lets you play Angry Birds, surf the web with a nice interface, etc. I guess you can do that under the dedicated Rasbperry pi distribution.

What's mk802 and ouya?




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  Reply # 666750 3-Aug-2012 10:11 Send private message

android is java running on top of linux, so you have some overhead there, but xbmc has only like 1 line of java code in it to run, so not sure how well it will perform on the pi.

ouya is a kickstarter project for a game console using android as its OS, made some press because how quickly it raised funds and all the records it broke (just google ouya), basically a USD$99 game console that you can officially hack to run custom software like xbmc.

mk802 is a usb key size android device, basically it has a usb port for keyboard/mouse and hdmi output, so just plug it into your tv like a usb stick and power it via usb and bam, you're running android on your tv.



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  Reply # 666785 3-Aug-2012 11:00 Send private message

Is Android in Java, or does it just run Java programs? I've never looked into it.

Ouya sounds interesting, so does mk802. I'll look into them both when I have some spare time, thanks :)




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  Reply # 666794 3-Aug-2012 11:08 Send private message

the OS for android is written in java (there will be some c++ though), and most apps i believe are written in java. however you can now write apps in c++ for android.



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  Reply # 666799 3-Aug-2012 11:19 Send private message

I guess since it's based on Linux there's a lot of C/C++, with a UI or custom layer perhaps written in Java.




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