Is it THAT HARD to find a good 1080P XBMC solution?

Forums › Home Theatre (incl HTPC) › Is it THAT HARD to find a good 1080P XBMC solution?

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#748787 22-Jan-2013 13:44

I was relying on CEC to pass remote commands to the R Pi XMBC. I started to research remotes and receivers but gave up due to complexity given my PS3 works ok most of the time.

What's the easiest way to get my Harmony One remote working with XMBC/R Pi? Do I buy a generic MCE IR receiver from ebay then configure it somehow? I'd rather not have yet another remote, as handy as the NYXBoard looks the H1 was meant to solve that problem. I should be able to program things into the touch sensitive screen.

reven

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#748794 22-Jan-2013 13:51

yeah CEC is pretty basic and wont provide you with most control, CEC is nice in a pinch, but really doesn't send enough buttons to the target device to be all that usable (no colour buttons, "guide" etc buttons wont be sent on most tvs).

its better for turning on devices and to right inputs, and having xbmc adjust your volume on your receiver when changing volume within xbmc etc.

i suggest you buy a RC6/eHome remote receiver, you should be able to find a device already configured for the xbmc/rc6 remote for your harmony remote using logitechs software.

I'm not sure what the cheap ones on trademe are like, i would only buy one that said "RC6" in the description.

timmmay

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#748796 22-Jan-2013 13:56

Something like this or this should work ok, right? I can then ditch the remote and get the Harmony One using that IR receiver... once I work out how to set up the remote.

Someone really need to write a guide, I'm sure a lot of people would love a simple guide to this stuff.

reven

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#748801 22-Jan-2013 14:01

yeah that one should work, just need the receiver/usb part, can ditch the remote.

theres probably a few guides laying around in the forum. most people seem to use a mce remote at first, then once thats working move up to a harmony remote later if needed. and theres no guide needed for MCE, just plug and play.

my plan is to use the motoroloa nxyboard remote for xbmc and then have xbmc control my receivers volume via CEC (my house is currently being built so once thats finished ill play with getting that all working).

timmmay

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#748803 22-Jan-2013 14:02

Right I'll order one of those then and see how it goes, thanks. Once I have it working I can play with the Harmony. I assume the IR thingy just plugs into the R Pi.

timmmay

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#748804 22-Jan-2013 14:04

Are those four coloured buttons important for XBMC control?

There's this one, and this one, only difference is the buttons have either pictures or colors.

reven

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#748809 22-Jan-2013 14:14

i'd go with the one with the colour buttons, the receiver shouldnt matter, but same price, may as well get the one with the extra buttons. colour buttons in xbmc are often for
- context menu
- change subtitles (or turn them off)
- change audio tracks etc
- enter/exit full screen

yup just plug the usb into the pi and it should be good to go.

for the pi i strongly suggest turning off the following
- background fanart
- background video/visualization
these are under
settings -> appearance -> skin settings
the pi struggles showing the full menu when video is playing back underneath.

timmmay

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#748820 22-Jan-2013 14:17

Thanks - purchased :)

SumnerBoy

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#748838 22-Jan-2013 14:46

For those with RPis that are not happy with the performance, I would HIGHLY recommend trying a USB stick install, on a fast USB 3.0 stick. I have been using mine on cheap USB 2.0 sticks and just upgraded to $40 Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0 sticks - the difference in speed in the UI is night and day.

The RPis fly along with these new sticks.

They cost almost as much as the RPi, but IMHO it makes the whole experience worth it.

The other alternative is to boot from an NFS share.

bisr

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#748991 22-Jan-2013 16:58

Talkiet:
timmmay: I got a R Pi to use instead of my PS3 for playing video stored on a PC across a network. I find the image quality of the R Pi lower than the PS3, especially during busy action scenes. The CEC remote integration that used to work doesn't work any more either, no idea why or how to fix it. The menus are a bit slow too, even with everything stored on a remote MySQL server.

I quite like XBMC, but it's not super user friendly, you really need a keyboard to fully use it. I'd quite like to find decent hardware to replace the R Pi, but it seems there's nothing compact available for less than $1000 unless you want to hack an ATV or something.

Welcome to my square 1 :-)

The ATV2 is a superb solution if you can live with 720p output.

But yes, next step up for something solid, fluid and quick is a proper PC and that's either $3-400 cheap secondhand and ugly/noisy, or $800+ new. $1000+ for a really nice case and silent.

I ended up with a big machine in another room using a 10m HDMI cable. If you can make that work, I recommend it.

Cheers - N

I built a mini pc for xbmc for just over $600+gst. Parts from PB Tech.

i3-3220 with on board graphics
ASRock B75M-ITX Mini ITX motherboard
4GB Strontium Hynix 1600MHz DDR3 Single Module (Ram)
Samsung 64GB SSD 830 Series (Needed this size because I put windows 7 on)
Antec ISK 310-150 Mini-ITX case, comes with built-in 150W power supply.

Loudest part of it is the stock cooler/fan that comes with the CPU. This thing starts in 4seconds maximum and boots straight to XBMC.

reven

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#748993 22-Jan-2013 17:05

Antec ISK 310-150 Mini-ITX case, comes with built-in 150W power supply.

that looks like a nice case, nice to see it doesnt need a external power adapter like most similar cases (i hate power bricks, they take up way to much space).

Renwick

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#749612 23-Jan-2013 15:03

The are a small batch of XBMC Remotes designed for use with Windows 8 touch Screen tablets. Not all of them may yet be compatible for Frodo but I have recently configured 'XBMC Remote' on a Samsung 500t for working with my raspbmc RPi and works well with my Video library.

bisr

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#749894 23-Jan-2013 22:23

Renwick: The are a small batch of XBMC Remotes designed for use with Windows 8 touch Screen tablets. Not all of them may yet be compatible for Frodo but I have recently configured 'XBMC Remote' on a Samsung 500t for working with my raspbmc RPi and works well with my Video library.

So it's not technically a remote, it's an application for windows 8. Have any other details you can share about it, like a name and link? Interested to know more...

Renwick

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#749922 23-Jan-2013 23:07

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=143709 and
http://ashterisk.wordpress.com/xbmc-remote-windows-8-metro-app/

timmmay

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#785606 22-Mar-2013 18:13

I thought I'd re-open this thread instead of starting a new once, since it's highly related.

I'm liking XBMC, it's a good media library. It has a few quirks, you have to make sure your shows are perfectly named otherwise they're not picked up, but that's ok. It's the controls and the speed on the R.Pi that's bothering me a bit.

I've gotten my harmony remote mostly working, but it's really slow to go through big lists. The key delay is quite slow, so scrolling down to W shows is super slow. I couldn't get the Harmony to send letter through, which would help. I do have a keyboard hooked up, but it's ugly and across the room. I have a $20 ebay remote that works well, but I don't like having heaps of remotes. I have Yatse on Android, which seems pretty nice, but it's a bit of a hassle to have a big tablet for a remote.

Also the menu speed is pretty slow, just general operation.

I have it talking to a MySQL server on my PC, which may be making it a bit faster. I have the R.Pi on raspbmc which overclocks a bit by default, but I may turn it up to max - I have a small heatsink on the main processor that a mate got from Jaycar for me so it should handle it ok.

Any suggestions? I'd rather not go buy a several hundred dollar unit to replace the R.Pi. The Ouya could be an option, but I want to see reviews first. Plus I have a PS3 sitting there that works great for most things, but won't play some content. I know about that Motorola Nyxboard keyboard XBMC, that might be a pretty good option to speed things up a bit.

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