XBMC running on Raspberry Pi

Anyone can tell me if we can use a USB remote control with XBMC?

There’s an android app “XBMC remote” (don’t know if their is one for iPhone!).

There are plenty of XBMC remotes on iPhone

why not try a bluetooth remote: http://kimattree.blogspot.com/2010/09/xbmc-remote-control-part-deux_6369.html

AppStore search XBMC Commander.

Sure, XBMC is working with Lirc so you can use almost anything. I tried WinMCE USB receiver with plenty of remotes, all worked just fine. I also tested WiiMote with USB Bluetooth adapter.
Just not using Pi itself, only X86 hw, but the software is open so I am sure I can compile it for Pi later on.

Has anyone tried connecting a photodiode (and perhaps a resistor, and maybe a transistor and another resistor) in the right place on the PI’s existing expansion slots? I remember a long time ago LIRC could be used with a photo diode circuit, so I wonder if the code is there and could be adapted.

I wrote up a blog showing how to connect your Raspberry pi to a Wii remote. Check it out!

http://www.brianhensley.net/2012/08/wii-controller-raspberry-pi-python.html

Cheers,
Brian Hensley

Isn’t the Raspi able to handle CEC on HDMI? So you can use your TV remote to control XBMC?

CEC support or XBMC via libCEC is discussed in the forum
http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/features-and-requests/hdmi-cec-and-xbmc

The Boxee remote works excellently with XBMC for me (on an Ubuntu machine)

http://amzn.com/B00480OSVK

One word, FLIRC.
http://www.flirc.tv/
I got one and I use it with my XBOX 360 remote. It works extremely well for me. It was exactly what I was looking for, and I really like it. XBMC also mentioned them here.
http://xbmc.org/natethomas/2012/04/15/flirc-a-new-old-way-to-control-xbmc/

I’ve been seriously anticipating getting a Pi. Now I’m Pi^6

Not that I personally care about XMBC (watch videos and listen to radio/audio using VLC, Tunein & foobar) but that has to be the coolest thing since the 99 was invented

That’s 4 Pis I’m buying now. You guys are gonna bleed me dry.

Thanks for posting this. !! Now it is a definite buy

If that means I can use xbmc-iplayerv2 with it then I’m getting two :D

So will any source changes be merged into the official xbmc codebase?… or will xbmc for raspberry pi be a fork?

You’d have to ask XBMC, but I believe the intention is for this stuff to go in the codebase fairly shortly as another supported platform.

Team XBMC doesn’t work on stuff without the intention of getting it into the master tree. (although sometimes it takes a awhile or we deem the something isn’t up to quality, but that is not the case here)
We have 2 (soon 3) teammates hard at work and I assure you we’re all hyped and looking forward to it as much as you guys in the standard XBMC build.

Thanks for all the kinds words!

Awesome… just to be clear; when this is done, I will be able to ./configure, make, and make install?

This is awesome; congrats.

Amazing – great work folks!!!!

SO very cool. Shows the power of the device. This is going to be great !

That’s incredible! Can’t wait for the pi to come out!

Hi, great news guys. One question though, which I’ve also asked on xbmc forums, all the demos have been with h264 samples so will this work with xvid etc? I noted the discussions about the licensed codecs so I’m just wondering whether the non-licensed codec will be software based and the work performed by the CPU and whether its up to it.
Still planning to get a Pi though but I could be after a lot more if xvid works on xbmc.
Cheers
Rob

The reason they use h264 is because its more hardware intensive than the other formats. Xvid should work flawlessly.

What I’ve been told (could be wrong, I was the dude who called the composite video ‘audio out’ in the video above) is that the GPU is only licensed for H.264. SD xvid will play, but like most ARM-based devices it will most likely struggle on HD Xvid. I was unable to test this at SCALE myself, but someone on the team (me, if nobody else does) will put together a matrix of what works/doesn’t if nobody else does.

Thanks for the info Keith and a matrix would be really helpful. Looking forward to getting my hands on this and having a play!

Seriously? You show us this and now we have to wait? This is torture :D

ok, so I guess I’m in the minority here, but I’m not really sure that having XMBC running is that great a thing… If these become media streamers stuck to the back of TV’s – I don’t really see how that will help forward the aims of the project – i.e. getting computers to screw around with, into the hands of kids. Maybe if there was a SD card on the website that just boots straight into XMBC, and they add a couple of dollars onto cost, to help with the costs of the project, then I can see it – but if people are buying these to watch movies on, what’s the point?

Well, for one thing, it could mean that they could order a million units instead of 100k, and bring price down?…

I mean, I can’t for the life of me find a downside to this…

Hi,
Here are my thoughts;
1. Any surplus(profit) that is generated from the sales of these devices for other than their intended use as an educational tool goes back to fund the intended use i.e. keeping the foundation running, allowing for donations, investing in next gen hardware.
2. The more they are able to sell means the larger volumes they can be produced in and therefore lower the cost per unit to manufacture and thus increase the surplus the foundation make.
3. The more uses these devices have the more likely that there will be something that sparks the interest of the end user to get involved with and educate themselves, be that child or adult. I include myself in this category.
4. With the support of such a large and successful open source project like xbmc supporting the Pi then it helps to advertise the foundation and its intended goals on a global scale. This may help it be adopted into other countries and become a similar educational tool and increase the community support.
There’s probably more I could waffle on about but for me although xbmc is my initial intended use for this I am also interested in using it for home automation and remotely controlled advertising screens. Plus hopefully getting involved with the community on its intended use of promoting computing skills in school.
Rob

So you rather want the foundation to stipulate what they can be used for ? Rather limiting isn’t it ?

Why would someone that wants it as a meda center pay more you mean ? What they pay still goes tot he foundation.

I really don’t see your point at all, you want limits, restrictions and someone to pay more for some reason ?

Its not something to worry about. Essentially what this shows is that the Pi is not just an underpowered “eduputer”, like the toy laptops sold for toddlers, but that there’s a fair bit of power lurking behind that $25/$35 price tag. In addition, the more hobbyist/OEM applications that open up for the Raspberry Pi, the quicker the speed and volume of production will ramp up, enabling the Foundation to supply whoever wants a Pi with as many as they need; and that especially includes the children and schools that were the original vision.

Heres another way to see things – economy of scale allows the Foundation to maintain their price points for the Model A and B.

Cheap, pocket money computers that are cool to use and easy to program. Thats what will get the Pi into the hands of the target audience.

I think i get where you’re coming from!
but…
Think the tag “edu-tainment” can be used here” (hate the phrase) but it’s a good description of the R-Pi project,

If you just aim it for Education then it will be a niche product not widely used outside the School room or enthusiasts which inevitably end up in the project drawer.

If you just aim for Entertainment then you start a slide to the lowest common denominator (i.e. generic FPS or Turn based games, f@rt aps! lol)

But the legacy of the R-Pi is in the BBC Micro; a device designed and used to educate and entertain it’s users. Also in the Hobby programmers of computers like the Atari ST’s & Archimedes and the Sinclair Spectrum machines.

The way I see it, if you educate and entertain people, the start to innovate and build on what they have learned and enjoyed.
^_^

But I’m just looking for a low cost/power media centre…

…for now…
then the world!!! Muahahaha!!!

It might start as a home brew media centre, but it is open so can be modified….and exactly the same thing can run Scratch or Python or a browser, so its natural to explore..

Don’t worry, this isn’t it LOL Very unlikely to become a media center thereby displacing the original idea – it simply can’t. There is a reason why the demo deliberately only shows cartoons – it’s because cartoons hide the lack of CPU power when decoded. Any “real” video will show significant defects, pixelation and stutter – one which the video makers choose to conceal. So in summary: XBMC may run but past the menus and various screen shots it will be a hard sell when rubber meets the road – meaning playing non-cartoon 1080p video.

Actually animation is much harder to compress without artefacts than live action. The minor pixelation and imperfections are much more noticable because you see imperfections in what is supposed to be a solid block and they stand out, whereas in live action there’s grain and non-uniform shading that covers a lot of this.

Not sure where you get this idea from, but I think you will find that you are wrong. Its unlikely that you have one of the beta boards so sounds like something that you have just decided that you know.

Also it isn’t the cpu that is being used to decode these videos, but rather the GPU, which the foundation has said has hardware decoding support.

Also they have already posted a clip of it playing a non-cartoon about a month or two ago.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/431

You really seem to be talking out of your hat here. If there is a downside that you don’t see here to using the Raspberry Pi for video playback, it’s that the hardware decoding doesn’t have a lot of different formats that it will process. They used H.264 because that works. Several other codecs probably won’t work at high resolutions (though this probably could process standard video (480i) in many codecs through horsepower alone). Still, there is a lot you can do with H.264.

Mine will spend some of it’s life doing this, but will come out and play when needed. After all, leaving an SD card and USB disk behind the telly isn’t hard.

If it works with TVersity the same way I use my Asus netbook with the XBox, I’m mega happy at this news. The only thing that could make me happier is if the government would assist this revolution by changing the taxation laws on component imports, which are, without a doubt stifling electronics development in this country.

And there is the option im sure alot will use of buying 1 and sending 1 which I will do with every purchase I make. And I hope others follow this route also. if $25-35 is really going to break your bank then you shouldnt being buying 1 in the first place. The more it does the better really.

this is great news
i will be buying more than one now

the board in the video seems to have a different layout, connector wise, to those in the previously published pictures and diagrams. Perhaps I need to watch the video again…
Puzzling.
Ian

That’s because it’s actually an alpha board (50 of those were made a while back) The pictures you’ve seen are of the beta version – different board layout, other small differences, but essentially the same. In a week or so the production model will start shipping, looking the same as the beta.

shipping where? Where can I buy this?

Very very cool!

Very good development, another point in preventing the disuse syndrome of many educational gadgets! This will contribute to preventing users from storing the Raspberry Pi away when they get bored of it, as it is a more permanent usage

Looking good.. will it gain things like cover graphics and series support in time or is it limited too much by the memory/cpu? (I mainly use Plex, which will probably be ported eventually but would run an xbmc server on the network if it’ll do the job.. I’ve got at least 2 R-Pis earmarked for media).

It already supports all of this, the demo video was just showing some plain un-indexed video files dumped onto a USB disk as an example.

Yup, I apologize. We were so excited to make a video we didn’t update the library. Just like every XBMC build, it will support everything you’re used to in XBMC builds on other ARM platforms like XBMC-iOS.

Please someone write up the tutorial for how to install this. I need to replace my current XBMC machine, and if this works I’m sold.

-Jacob

Schweet! :-D

[…] die thread op het software forum, daar ga je al meer kans hebben op een antwoord. Interesting btw: XBMC running on Raspberry Pi | Raspberry Pi Ik geloofde tbh tot dat moment niet dat de raspberry krachtig genoeg zou zijn om 1080p vloeiend af […]

Everyday I love the Raspberry Pi more and more. I’m really hoping they get PleXBMC to work on it as I love to use my Plex server.
Also can I assume this will support MKV files with Dolby Digital and DTS audio? As we just saw MOV files with AAC audio.

I wanna know this too! :D

Mkv/Mov is just the container format, I think what you want to know is if it support Xvid, theora, et al as well as H.264(which is what format the videos were in)

No, they are specifically asking about audio codecs not containers or video codecs. I am also interested in ac3 audio, given that is what almost any mkv dvd rip will have.

AAC is too expensive to licence on the GPU, so that must be decoded on the Arm (where you can download stuff to do it for free).

Excellent, this is great news and an impressive display for such a small investment. Developments like this are just going to strengthen the community who will work to make the most of the device that all will benefit from.

This is Wonderful, I definitely want to buy 2 devices now. One for media Xbmc and one for my education with linux :)

Keep it going :)

How does it handle standard resolution files like say a 480p xvid?

All the talk seems to be about 1080p h264 which is the accelerated format, can it manage other formats that are software-rendered perhaps?

Yes.

Awesome – this is seals it for me :)

Ok… so now both my gf and my mother wants one of these >.>

This was kind of the worse kept secret :).
Having said that, it’s the first time I can see video playback with XBMC, as the previous video only showed linux boot and XBMC ui.

Davilla has confirmed that XBMC won’t run in 128mb so I guess we eager XBMCers are going to have to wait to get the 256mb Pi.
Patience never was my strong point. :-)

Good news Mike, the first ones being made are the type B 256Mb ethernet versions so your wait shouldn’t be too long…

I’m so excited to pick one of these up but I’m afraid I’m not going to get one of the first manufactured ones because they’ll go fast.

wow wow wow

No cows :-(

… could we create cows on this? Hope so, cause that’d be another + point

.. Like I neeeed 1 lol

I’m buying 10.

Mind = Blown

Could of held out on this until after the launch of the first stock, now how much competition is there going to be to get one of the first units!!

[…] XBMC running on Raspberry Pi We wanted to keep the fact that XBMC is running beautifully on Raspberry Pi at least moderately quiet until Gimli and Davilla from XBMC had unveiled their demo at Scale 10x this weekend. Now they have done, so we can all talk about it: here’s some video showing how you can use your Raspberry Pi as a media centre. A $25/$35 media centre the size of a pack of playing cards. […]

[…] Raspberry Pi […]

I was thinking I’d get a Raspberry Pi; now it’s a certainty.

What I’d love to see is a simple infrared receiver to plug in via USB so that I could use a universal remote to control it. I know you can buy receiver / remote packages, but it would awesome to have a simple, small IR receiver that didn’t ruin the look of what I’m sure will be a very sleek and compact package.

Check out the remote from pulse eight: http://www.pulse-eight.com/store/products/96-motorola-nyxboard-remote-designed-for-xbmc.aspx. It’s designed for XBMC and the USB receiver is very small.

lol – the remote’s more expensie than the box it controls!

is the use possible here Touch Screen in Raspberry Pi ?

I want to utillize him in a machine, here such USB Touch Screen Film http://www.ebay.com/itm/7-inch-USB-Panel-Kit-Add-Touch-Screen-Function-Asus-EeePC-Eee-PC-ZVLT031-/300637982306?pt=Computer_Monitors&hash=item45ff6b8e62will work on him?

Do my eyes and ears deceive me, or is that an S/PDIF output?

I think you are referring to the composite RCA video out connector :)

The guy narrating the video points at it and says “that’s digital audio.” Very strange.

Sorry about that guys! I know I screwed up. I should of looked at the specs, but we were too excited seeing it play 1080p. Please blame me and don’t hold the team accountable. :)

It was never a problem. :) I just wondered if you’d figured out an enormously clever way to dual-purpose the VGA port.

I think you may be onto something, what board version is this? it has no analogue audio jack. Also orange is the colour for S/PDIF, surely it’d be yellow if it was composite video. and he does say “digital audio” then “HDMI”

You do have audio over HDMI though, of course a lot of people need to upgrade to new receivers though.

I really hope it will work with my USB-DVB-C-Tuner. I had pretty much work to get it to run at my current computer… :)

Will Raspberry handle a TV Server like HTS Tvheadend? …and MySQL database for XBMC at the same time?

I can confirm that XBMC on ATV2 can handle both fine (except for HD mpeg2 streams, which is a limitation of both their hardware decoders and R-PI’s) so I have hope we can get similar performance out of the R-PI. I actually run TVHeadend myself.

[…] port werd op de Scale 10X-expo gepresenteerd door ontwikkelaars Gimli en Davilla, zo schrijft het bedrijf achter Raspberry Pi. Uit de demonstratievideo valt op te maken dat de interface van de […]

[…] for this device aren’t limited to education. This weekend the group is showing off a Raspberry Pi system running XBMC, a powerful media center […]

impressive, anyone hear the audio skip @2:23?

[…] te spelen.De port werd op de Scale 10X-expo gepresenteerd door ontwikkelaars Gimli en Davilla, zo schrijft het bedrijf achter Raspberry Pi. Uit de demonstratievideo valt op te maken dat de interface van de […]

Thanks,
This saves me a ton of work as it is exactly what I hope to use my Raspberry Pi for.
Can’t wait now for production units.

Now we just need libCEC support for the Raspberry Pi’s HDMI transmitter chip

CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) for HDMI will enable XBMC running on Raspberry Pi to control your television and receiver on/off/volume, as well as letting you controlling XBMC via your televisions remote control without a dedicated media center remote

libCEC is the open source library by Pulse-Eight that XBMC uses for CEC ;)

The HDMI and CEC is all done by the GPU, no seperate chip. It does support CEC, but not sure of the state of any compatible library.

Nice ! I really need that R-Pi version with Digital Audio, which one is it ? What is the maximum bitrate supported, we see that Big Buck Bunny is around 10mb/s but does it work for let’s say 50mb/s ( which should cover everything ) or is it too much ?

[…] Today I took a look at the Rasberry PI website and found this video: […]

[…] for this device aren’t singular to education. This weekend a organisation is arrangement off a Raspberry Pi complement regulating XBMC, a absolute media core […]

Thought about Ubuntu TV on this thing? Could be nice!

Unfortunately, no Ubuntu on this. They don’t support the ARM chip on this.

Ubuntu TV supports ARM… probably just not not this ARM, I wonder how much work it would be to get from that ARM to this ARM…
http://www.ubuntu.com/tv/features-and-specs

[…] XBMC shown running on the Raspberry Pi. […]

Can I connect a PS3 controller (wireless) somehow on the r-pi ?

a cheap remote control
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/319894709/TV_remote_control_with_best_price.html

an irda usb adapter
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/321273021/USB_2_0_to_IRDA_Wireless.html

i hope themywill be compatible..

[…] XBMC running on Raspberry Pi […]

[…] Сообщение о портировании XBMC на Raspberry Pi появилось 21 января, по ссылке на сайте фонда Raspberry Pi можно увидеть видео, демонстрирующее работу этого приложения на одноплатном компьютере. […]

I want this! I have been wanting this for so long, low powered capable media center. This is so impressive. Well done to everyone involved. Please let me know as soon as this is available for purchase. I’ll take 3.

is it posible skype with mic and webcam running on Raspberry Pi?

Probably not. Skype is closed source, and needs to be compiled by Skype for a specific platform. In the case of the RasPi is Linux-on-ARM-type-XYZ. I don’t see that on http://www.skype.com/intl/en/get-skype/

you’re wrong check this http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=85138

Does Raspberry Pi actually work?…

Linux Action Show (22/01/12) had a segment showing a demo of one running as a full media center (XBMC) at Scale 10x , looked pretty good. I think they had the s/w running off a USB Stick. http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/571…

[…] it could have on home theater setups are boundless, really just limited by your imagination. Further news has hit today that XBMC runs pretty well on the small platform. This is especially important, since XBMC is arguably the most popular HTPC software. Both XBMC and […]

please take a look if it is possible to support http://www.linuxmce.org also.

Excellent! Really appreciated!!
It would be even better if you could provide us with the binaries of XBMC for Arm.

This really is the icing on the cake.

The pi was already going to be a bit of a game changer – now it really is! I can’t wait for launch day! (jiggles impatiently)

[…] produto começar a ser entregue aos primeiros usuários, os desenvolvedores divulgaram um vídeo do popular aplicativo de media center XBMC rodando no Raspberry Pi exibindo um vídeo de 1080p sem soluços. Eles avisam que, caso o XBMC não seja incluído na […]

[…] claro, começaram os demos: XBMC rodando no bichinho; Raspberry Pi, AirPlay e […]

This is awesome… I have finished building my tv server hooked up with multiple DVB adapters… All i need now is a frontend that is able to play full hd 1080p h264 video. Can’t wait to order these nice little machines!

[…] week we saw a video of Air Play running on the Raspberry PI $35 mini PC and now we have another video, this time it is XBMC running on the Raspberry PI with […]

I am going to use my pi in my car. I’ll stash the pi in my glovebox, use an inexpensive screen mounted to my dash, and use some type of remote. Oh, the music my Pi will play. I’ll also attempt to use a 3G internet USB thing so i can use the internet on it to get scores and weather forecasts, or stream music, while I’m driving

[…] Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced via their website that the much anticipated “Raspberry Pi Model B” $35 single board computer […]

Wow… Great work guys.. :)

[…] XBMC Running On A Raspberry PI (Video) Last week we saw a video of Air Play running on the Raspberry PI $35 mini PC and now we have another video, this time it is XBMC running on the Raspberry PI with […]

What can you use for sound? usb soundcard of sorts?

It’s got HDMI sound already.

Funny, Cause if you can put it on a classic Xbox no reason not to be able to put it on a Rasberry PI. Now if XBMC would make a version that just controlled a central location like a XBMC remote that has a nice GUI (Like a VNC connection) . I have a nice remote for my android phone but this does not show the screen. I love XBMC.

[…] RaspberryPi.org […]

[…] port was shown running on the Raspberry Pi during the Scale 10X-expo. The developers Gimli and Davilla were responsible for the presentation; […]

I intend to get at least two for using with XBMC if it plays back video flawlessly.

One thing I’m wondering about – will it have the ability to turn it on with a remote, or at least wake it up from S3?

[…] Pi is a different matter. This single-board computer is about the size of a credit card, and it was recently demoed running […]

[…] port werd op de Scale 10X-expo gepresenteerd door ontwikkelaars Gimli en Davilla, zo schrijft het bedrijf achter Raspberry Pi. Uit de demonstratievideo valt op te maken dat de interface van de […]

[…] version 11 (Codename:Eden) XBMC, the popular media center for practically any platform, including the Raspberry Pi allows basic Airplay functionality (No Airplay mirroring yet!). To enable the Media Center as an […]

[…] week we saw a video of Air Play using on a Raspberry PI $35 mini PC and now we have another video, this time it is XBMC using on a Raspberry PI with 1080p […]

[…] saw a video of Air Play in succession on the Raspberry PI $35 mini PC and now we have another video, […]

[…] you will have to build XBMC from source to run on the Pi, but from the sounds of it, they will be offering binaries real soon. In the meantime, drool over the following video of XBMC running on the Pi. Soon, you can […]

WOOOHOOOO! best news ever, time to turn the current PC into a NAS and buy a RP for every tv in the house!!!

[…] http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/571 […]

So it plays h.264 720/1080 without any issues but will it be able to handle decoding SD xvid/divx files etc too? IIRC XBMC does software/CPU decoding for SD files although I might be completely wrong.. I’ve never really worried about it as I’ve always had it running on relatively powerful Windows PC’s.

Regardless.. I’m very impressed and can’t wait to pick one of these up – even if only to support the cause – all the talk of bedroom coding and back to basics makes me want to see Elite and Chuckie Egg running on a Raspberry PI as that’s where it all began for me a loooong time ago.

XBMC traditionally has decoded via ffmpeg using software decoding. In the past few years since moving to multiple platforms we have tried to leverage hardware decoders if it’s possible and available, like VDPAU, VAAPI, OpenMax, etc. XBMC will utilize whatever you have to do decoding. If it’s a hardware decoder that supports Part3 and Part 10 (ASP or AVC, or xvid vs h.264) XBMC will utilize it. If not, it will attempt it to do it with software.
R-Pi doesn’t have support for MPEG4 ASP/Part 3 in their hardware decoder, so XBMC will fall back to software decoding in those instances.

I had not yet thought of using the Raspberry Pi as part of my Tivo system. If it can stream Tivo video, I will be a happy camper. If it can transfer video signals from my tuner to my TV, I will be a happy camper. Or should I say I’ll be a happy TV viewer?

Looks like a awesome replacement for my SageTV extenders. Google bought that company and essentially killed it. Just need some software that is up to par with SageTV.

Awesome work. I will be buying 6 for my TVs as soon as you start shipping.

[…] computer. We’ve heard a little bit about it, but it recently garnered our attention when the machine was shown running XBMC at 1080p. That’s a lot of decoding to be done with the small package, and it’s taken […]

90mb xbmc distro: geexbox http://www.geexbox.org/
another small distro, based on blackbox http://www.slitaz.org/en/

[…] computer. We’ve heard a little bit about it, but it recently garnered our attention when the machine was shown running XBMC at 1080p. That’s a lot of decoding to be done with the small package, and it’s taken care of at […]

I am very curious to know how the combination of Rpi and XBMC works with my DVBLogic Connect server (http://www.dvblogic.com).

I have never seen that software and there’s currently not a PVR addon for it in XBMC, so that’s the first step before trying to get it going on the R-Pi running XBMC.
Since it’s payware I doubt any of our team would be interested, but you should email them and see if they’re interested in making a python addon for XBMC.

I have XBMC with DVBLogic Connect! server running on a Windows box through DLNA. Works wonderfull

The basic fact that the Raspberry Pi can handle XBMC shows the power and potential of this tiny system. I can see the “R-pi” on planes, trains, homes, schools and many automobiles. Keep up the great work and maybe team up with not-for-profit “Khan Academy” seen on TED TV.

No t sure if this has already been asked but I have a coupe of questions:
1:an unraid server with about 2t of media from vobs .h264 .mp4 will the rasberry pi be capable of playing them? (some/most are 1080p ?
2:will the rasberry pi come in a box or just a raw card?

Ps: sooooo amazed at what you guys have done will be a great tool to get my son interested in programming

h.264 and MP4 will be fine (MP2 won’t, so those with DVDs of ripped MP2s will need to transcode them). There’s no box initially, but we’ll be making and selling them a few weeks after launch.

I’m sorry if ask something stupid – i tend to – but is it possible to get multichannel audio via HDMI? I know this question doesn’t relate to this topic, but i’m just lazy to register to the forum.

Will the pvr/live branch be supported?

The PVR guys do sync back to master so should be supported on every platform we officially support (notice they are supporting atv2/ipad/iphone now)

[…] computer. We’ve heard a little bit about it, but it recently garnered our attention when the machine was shown running XBMC at 1080p. That’s a lot of decoding to be done with the small package, and it’s taken […]

YES! As an XBMC addict from the very first releases to this day this is exactly what I want. Here’s hoping someone starts putting together pre-loaded installs on SD cards so us dumb idiots who are still terrified of configs and command lines can just plug and play!

[…] computer. We’ve heard a little bit about it, but it recently garnered our attention when the machine was shown running XBMC at 1080p. That’s a lot of decoding to be done with the small package, and it’s taken care of at […]

[…] [Blog oficial, via Hardware.com.br] […]

Shut up and TAKE MY MONEY!

Shut up and,….er…..SHUT UP.

[…] the Raspberry Pi site for more […]

[…] active in responding to comments in the XBMC and AirPlay blog posts, so drop them a line […]

Exactly what I intended to use RasPi for at first instance. (other uses will be NAS, video surveillance, and skype during holidays – no need to take a laptop and get it stolen!)

[…] dev team’s been very active in responding to comments in the XBMC and AirPlay blog posts, so drop them a line if you have any detailed questions. More general […]

[…] player, a device should find foster with media enthusiasts too. Already, a device has been demonstrated using renouned open source front-end XBMC. The Broadcom chipset facilities hardware acceleration that allows for h.264 calm during 1080p […]

Guys, this is absolutely awesome, I’m counting the days until I can buy one!

Don’t expect R-Pi to be a really good media player. It wont even be close to other 30~40 USD medial players. R-Pi wasn’t designed to be a media player.

Probably, it will not able to play formats other than H.264.

If you need a cheep media player go and buy a 30 USD one from Ebay.

Care to provide an example?
The Sony SMP-N100 is $49 but 6x the size,
The Boxee Box is $165, and both are not “open”.

The part of the R-Pi responsible for the movie player is not open.

What file formats will the R-Pi capable of playing? We only know it is capable of H.264 in containers like mkv, mp4 e.t.c.

This is what a cheap (35 USD) Cyclone (random example) supports:

Video Codec Support: H.264, H.263, MKV, RM/RMVB, WMV9, MPEG 1/2/4, Xvid, DivX, FLV

Why not? It uses the same SoC as the Roku2, which is a popular media player….

Using the same SoC doesn’t mean it will support everything the SoC has to offer.

What hardware decoding will R-Pi offer. Only H.264? We still don’t know.

As far as I am considered the person that needs a Media Player should buy a Media Player. Will R-Pi able to play movie? Yes it will. Can it beat a system designed
to be a Media Player? For what we know until today, no.

Have you used xbmc before as it sounds as if you haven’t as its an outstanding piece of media centre software that no $30-$40 media player can hope to match and definitely not one with an Ethernet port.

Keith, who took the original Scale 10x video has confirmed that it should be able to play SD Xvid as well which will be good enough for me.

Rob

Yes I am using XBMC for years.

I will also use R-Pi for Media Player.

The thing is that there is a frenzy for the new up coming “R-Pi Media Player” and I am afraid that there will be a wave of “R-pi can’t do this, can’t do that” etc for the Media Player part.

It will be unfair for R-Pi.

Yup, I think you are right, but not much we can do about it, sadly.

[…] find this damn impressive. XBMC running on Raspberry Pi | Raspberry Pi I wondered if they'd get it working on there at all – but it seems to work very nicely! […]

[…] demo, which can be viewed in a YouTube video, shows that XBMC runs reasonably well on the Raspberry Pi hardware and is relatively responsive. It […]

Looks like a good idea. Put a decent simple case on it and a heatsink and sell these suckers ready to plug in and use. Add the cost of a decent sized SD card pre-load for the masses. If you can get it at or under $50+shipping, you got a deal.

[…] demo, that can be viewed in a YouTube video, shows that XBMC runs pretty good on a Raspberry Pi hardware and is comparatively responsive. It […]

[…] AirPlay capabilities. The dev team’s been really active in responding to comments in a XBMC as good as AirPlay blog posts, so dump them a line if we have any minute questions. More ubiquitous […]

i like the KU usb device…

will any of the base os sd images have a vnc server running so that can use hippo remote (on many phones) to control the XBMC (and anything else on the rpi)…if it does and has some CEC capability it will straight away have all the bits for a really cool media head…rpi would then allow you to pretty much soar above any of the smart tv stuff on current tv’s which is pretty limited (i.e. limted or no skype, limited dlna, limited youtube app, no browser etc)…(I saw a couple of separate replies below touching on these but thought easier to do one reply as related)

[…] demo, which can be viewed in a YouTube video, shows that XBMC runs reasonably well on the Raspberry Pi hardware and is relatively responsive. It […]

Wait… was that only 8-9 frames per second? Shouldn’t it be closer to 24?

It’s around 30fps – if you listen to the audio, he says the 8fps is a mistake, and refers to the menu screen only.

[…] demo, which can be viewed in a YouTube video, shows that XBMC runs reasonably well on the Raspberry Pi hardware and is relatively responsive. It […]

SOLD! I will take four of them. :)

Is there any chance of compiling the source of Boxee for the Pi? I prefer Boxee over Xbmc.

I wondered about this too. I have XBMC running on XBOX originals and I have a BoxeeBox. The old version of XBMC on the XB is likely very different than a more modern version. It is a significant;y more intelligent audio delivery device than it appears boxee cares to put effort into, but I have enjoyed some of the “out there on the net” options boxee has more intuitively built in. I need to put a new XBMC version on a lappy to see how much that stuff’s improved, but otherwise, I’m more than happy to see R-Pi at least start off as XBMC ready.

Crazy stuff, Will definitely be buying for friends as bedroom etc.
Hope you guys all the best in the future.

Very nice things that RaspBeery Pi does but the question is whe it will goes free for shipping ?
You guys can give as in ETA please ?

Personally I wait this tiny board since December , when you tell us that will go online for buying . January is almost done ! February it comes , please guys give us un ETA.

I think that primary the board most go to the end user ( us , the buyers ) and after that the real power of tjis tiny boar it will come in his real value.

I can wait to buy a few from this tiny board. If the our project runs good on this board we will buy much more .

Thank’s a lot for your answer .

[[In response to deleted post]]
I’d love some of whatever the hell it is you’re smoking, Daniel.

I dont wanna be rude but in some points Daniel has right . Sometimes , not just for me or him this board seems a little fiasco .
Why ? Let me tell you this way , the video “Hand-fixing Raspberry Pi beta boards ” on youtube . There is no need for that much work just to show us how time consumming is this operation. I tell you this just because I am an hardware service man . I repair everyday such a boards . So , let me show you some pics on such a soldering pads :

http://www.webhtb.ro/aygun/ps2_pads/Picture%201.jpg

also you cand watch the other pictures from the directory :

http://www.webhtb.ro/aygun/ps2_pads/

Fore me this operation can take me from 5 to 10 min.

Other point , there is no ETA for shipping the board . Even if there is defective . There will be buyyers , trust me on this.

My personal thought are that the real developement of the Raspeberry Pi will begin after you will strat the selling of this state of the art ARM board.

Thank’s a lot for understanding and Please give us an final date . Even if will be on March , April , May ….

Just tell us , Guys , the selling of the board will start on this date .

Keep up the good work !

You don’t want to be rude? I applaud your efforts, but you could try a bit harder.

Instead of an serious respons @Liz is trying very well to avoid the strait answer. Thanks a lot !
Politeness – is the key in business , even if you talk with an posible buyer.

If my project will be ok with Raspberry PI I will buy from 100 to 1000 pieces. Why ? Very simple , an tiny powerfull router with some bandwith managemenet and invoices generator , with , SQL databases , PHP , AJAX and webserver it is all I need.
That’s why Raspberry PI will be the best candidate for it .

I’m sorry for you but my politeness tell’s me not to respond provocations .

Thank’s a lot !

Usually people with business requests like yours come to us via email rather than leaving blog comments. To those people who come to us via email, we say that our projections say that there will be sufficient for you to buy in serious bulk (in the sort of numbers that schools might be looking at) in June or July of this year; we’ll relax the one per customer rule before that, but not to the degree where a single customer can outfit a whole school/university/business.

And it might be an English as a second language problem, but your original post *was* breathtakingly rude. Politeness is indeed key in business, but we have done enough business to know that a serious request does not usually come with the sort of rudeness you demonstrated, and also that such a request does not usually come as a blog comment. Keep it up and you’ll be banned.

If he’s this bad with *potential* suppliers I’d hate to see what he’s like with his customers.

The work that the foundation has done looks amazing. As a ‘young one’ myself (finished college last July, now out in the wonderful world of work), I can see that this will really change the face of computing in schools and colleges.

Schools and colleges were always too scared to let you touch any hardware, with the fear of you breaking it. I never really had the ‘freedom’ to experiment with programming within both school and college. Everything was done to a strict mark scheme, and if it wasn’t relevant to the exam, it wasn’t mentioned.

It’s things like media centres, games and stuff like this that interests kids these days. Those who think having media capabilities on the Pi will ruin it are definitely wrong. It will get kids interested in it, and I’m sure many of them will want to code things for their media players, swapping ideas and code with their friends.

I’ll definitely be getting one (and maybe a few more!) of these. :)

You didn’t see the half of it – I had to delete another post, and the emails he’s been sending to everybody at the Foundation whose addresses he can find have been a bit of a weekend entertainment too.

Folks (and especially Daniel) – I should point out that I let this first post by Daniel (now deleted) through because I assumed he was stoned and therefore couldn’t be blamed for his actions – or at least, that he’d be embarrassed by them later. A second, similar post a few hours later has demonstrated that either he has a more serious problem than I’d assumed, or that he’s just an asshat. Whichever it is, that subsequent post hasn’t been let through, Daniel has been banned, and if anybody else behaves in the same way, they will be too.

Note to Daniel and others: trying to post under a pseudonym after this sort of thing happens doesn’t work. Sorry. Hope you don’t get RSI.

Great work guys, I will definitely be getting one of these. One question – can you pull video from a network via upnp or nfs, or smb? Is there enough horsepower to handle the networking and the video playback?

This will kill the boxee box, won’t it?

Yes, you can pull vid and it can handle the networking and playback.

wow!, this is amazing! I have been rooting appletv’s to run xbmc but the r-pi looks like it is handling it even better than my appletv g2 and cheaper! Can’t wait for release!

This just convinced me I need this :). I also assume it will shake the nmt market up. The popcorn hour seems really overpriced now!

Hi, I really like your product and am going to buy one, once available. But i really wanted to be sure if RPi will support multichannel audio via HDMI?

If it doesn’t, one can always get some external audio processor and connect it via usb-hub, of course.

Please include me in the sales lists !!! I’ll not be in on the auctions, but will can certainly help promote you from here in France.

I’ve been watching your progress quietly from home and was very much hoping that XBMC (or similar) would make it into the final mix.
My goal for this little wonder is indeed a simple and effective HomeTelly solution – all my photos, videos, music and many of my DVD’s are, where possible, stored on NAS devices.

Keep it comming…
Simon

Just one little point ! If is ok with you ( dont ban this please )!
The only reason to comment this here is just to tell everybody when the board will be available . Just strait . All I need is one or 5 pieces of this board just to start the developement on this. That’s why I have visiting day by day this site . In my case the ethics on business is, being serious and respecting the terms .
All I needed is in terms regardin distribution and / or selling of the board.
Also , all Ineed a few pieces of this board to start the developement . If everything goes ok the bulk order will come over mail and all the paperworks .
All I just wanna know is that I’ve just heard.

Regarding “rudness” , it was a way to say that I’m agree with Daniel .

Thank’s again !
And thank you very much ( very serious ) for telling us the date of posible selling for the masses.

Keep Up the good work !
I will visit the site as usual , every day ;)

And have a nice day !

Perhaps we need to say this on the main page, but it has been mentioned *several* times in the comments and on the forums (and it’s also what we’re saying to people who email us, and to people who ask on Twitter).

We do not have a definite release date, but we expect it to be in the next couple of weeks based on what we have heard from the factory. We can’t GIVE you a release date until we have a shipping date from the factory. It’s just not physically possible. This week is Chinese New Year, so communications with them have been a bit sparse, but as soon as we have a shipment date from them, everybody on the mailing list will be told when our expected release date will be.

And – seriously, Aygun; but Daniel was wittering on like a madman about sugar and puppies, in-between bouts of insulting the Foundation. You agreed with him?

Ok @Liz , I will wait a few weeks, but seriously, you guys should set this *term* like a disclaimer on frontpage. I know about Chinese new year. I have friends on China and one of my best friend from country where I stay is in China at the Hyundai Co. Also have contacts at the Chinese ambassy . My workplace depends on the Shenzhen delivery of some devices.

Sorry if I have missed the posts or comments regarding the ETA of the board. I just cant read every post or comment. I just enter on site , seeing the news and I get out. From my mobilephone , notebook , pc or tablet. There is no day that I dont check the raspberry pi website.

Thank you again for the details.

Regardin Daniel , maybe his language it’s not so good but the message is clear reading between the lines . “Come on guys , stop showing us what YOU are doing with the board. Start selling it and let us make the developement.”

Thank’s a lot @Liz.

For goodness sake – the are literally hundreds of posts asking the same ‘when can I get it questions’ and it’s been answered hundreds of times. I am stunned that you read the website everyday, and have NEVER seen any of these posts. Do you think its fair to not bother doing ANY investigation before posting, just getting someone else to do your work for you?

If you are interested, the guy who sits next to me at work is Chinese. Oh, you were’t interested. Me neither.

Daniel was plain rude. He’s gone now.

@JamesH – please , let’s not start same discussion over and over.
As far as I remember , @Daniel asked on a post the same question as I did . Still no response to him .The question was not rude and it was quite politness on the question .

The initial answer to us was June or July.( this is what @Liz told us here ).
Without being disrespectful , but not everybody has the time to read everyday hundreds of comments . I’m checking the main page and some forum posts each day but not all . I dont have the time to enter in each post and read every single comment . The searchbox from the main page does not exists . Yes , it exists the FAQ that say “We were hoping to have the Raspberry Pi available to order by the end of 2011.”

Waiting some preorders news on the site.

The logic regarding the chinese people is that I know that they have Chinese New Year.Three weeks all te activity is stopped .

PS: I just respect very much the work that David Braben and his colleagues does. In fact , David Braben is one of my personal hero. Days and weeks lost in the front of an Amstrad cpc 464 playing Elite . Good old time !

There won’t be any preorder news, as there will not be preorders. You don’t need to read every comment BTW, try the Search button. Daniel was rude in his second comment which wasn’t passed on to the board. He has now been banned.

Sorry James but @Daniel asked once here “http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/564#comments” – page2 , the middle of the page .
Also in the same post page 3 is anoter guy who is waiting an answer.
Before the little fasco with @Daniel in tis post i asked also the same thing. No response !
After @Daniel made some jokes ( even being rude ) – it was an psyhological thing, to see if somebody moves in, we got an response. Defense instinct is worked out !
I wonder , if @Daniel dont made that move ( remember , was premeditated ) You and me we were still have this conversation ? Or the response were ignored also ?

In november @Daniel sent an official mail to the raspberry pi foundation .His english is not quite good but is the main programmer for some webbased applications and is the general manager of the Soft-Manager Ltd from Romania.
Also no response to him. Remember that !
I also run my own bussines in Romania and one of my partners is the company who @Daniel manage.

Being an manager to, I know that I have the responsability to take the applauses but also the criticism , all togheter.

In bussines the criticism I take , shows me that in that direction I have some lacks that must be corrected . It is the think that motivates me to run the company in good direction.

Dispite the first impression @Danile is a good professionist and a very good manager also.

Thank’s again for attention and wish you guys all the best !

With all do my respect , please show me the search box / button on the main page or related pages from the main page .

Thank you

1) I don’t care whether you are a manager or not.
2) The search button is at the bottom of the main forum page.
3) You will be able to buy larger quantities of boards around June time. I believe that answers your question. As it was answered by Liz a few days ago.
4) The Foundation is inundated with emails hundreds a day) with various requests along the same lines. If Daniel didn’t receive a reply, sorry, but that doesn’t excuse rudeness. And someone in his alleged position is ill advised being rude to a possible supplier.
5) As to the rest I really have no idea what you are talking about.

6) Aygun – if you keep spamming this comments section, you’ll be banned too. Final warning.

I just saw this and cancelled my Media PC upgrade!!!

Looks like I will need a few of these now.

What about Geexbox project ?
Maybe some guys from there can port the distribution to Raspberry PI board.
It works allready on Pandaboard SoC’s and Tegra2.
Porting it to the Raspberry PI is a matter of time.

In the next weeks I hope we will see it on cuBox and cotton candy “computer”.

Cotton Candy $200 if they even make it.
CuBox $135 preorder for end Feb 2012.

You pay your money, you take your choice.

Not sure how Geexbox would work given it usually boots from a CD or USB stick – sure someone will figure it out.

Geexbox works very well from hard drives too and boots quite well from an sd card :

http://www.geexbox.org/geexbox-for-embedded-devices-booting-on-tegra2/

It’s just a matter of porting the kernel but in fact is also ARM architecture. XBMC is compiled allready for Raspberry PI . Geexbox runs on XBMC platform and mplayer powered.

Mplayer has also ARM version .
I use mplayer on all OS’s sine first version ported to windows , and osx. ( Smplayer for Win , Mplaer OSX Extended for OSX and linux has a bunch of interface for UI)

For the asking price, the Rasberry is worth it just for the XBMC media player functions alone, never mind the million other things clever coders will undoubtedly put it to good use for!

I learnt about computers from my first home computer a ZX Spectrum with built in basic language, even on my old Amiga there was the very easy to learn AMOS language, I totally agree modern PC’s are difficult to learn coding for.

Good luck with the project, I will be buying one just for to use as a media player and to play around with, hopefully I will be able to contribute something when I get back into coding this amazing little computer.

I am sure ALL the army of old amiga fans will back the Rasberry Pi :)

Yes indeed ! In the earlier ’90 years I have built it my own clone of ZX Spectrum with the great processor Z80 ( it was an state of the art processor ) and an interface Z8055 . Burrning the EPROM’s was an real challenge . Loading the software over the magnetic tape and at he end an POKE error .
Always adjusting the the azimut of the tape player to load the games right without error.
Running from 2,5MHz to 25MHz is still used in some telephony and industrial PLC.

Awesome news, I want one (or two or three) even more now! :)

Whoo-Whoo…. $35 for a card and Open Source to play. What a day! :-)

Thanks for the show…..

One feature I would love to see implemented in xbmc / raspbmc: a family planner. I hope there is someone out there that can make it happen.

This might be easiest / most compatible by making google calendar available in XBMC / RaspBMC as a separate main menu item with the ability to enter (family) appointments.
That way RaspBMC will be used as the family planner as well – something that will be very welcome to my wife and children, and will help them using the Raspberry Pi with eagerness. (instead of only me fiddling around with it)

I hope there’s someone good enough in programming to implement this in XBMC?

[…] after reading with great interest this post and watching this video, on the Raspberry Pi website I was really excited about using it as a frontend for my TuxTV […]

Noob here,

I’d like to set up an XBMC on the raspberry pi, but if I have no experience coding would I be able to do it just learning some of the basics?

I expect there will be *lots* of instructions around once the device is launched!

[…] en el blog de Raspberry PI publicaron un post en donde se hacia una demostración de las capacidades multimedia de este […]

[…] kommt der Raspberry Pi wohl speziell bei den Multimedia Fans sehr gut an. So wurde bereits jetzt bestätigt, dass das XBMC Media Center darauf laufen wird. Aufgrund des geringen Stromverbrauchs haben die […]

[…] XBMC ejecutándose sobre R-Pi. XBMC es un conocido media player. R-Pi demuestra ser capaz de reproducir vídeos de alta definición usando este software, gracias a su GPU. Por ello, una de las aplicaciones que más seguidores tiene es la de su configuración como centro multimedia (Por cierto que XMBC merece algún dia un artículo aparte en este blog). Dado que el modelo B posee un puerto ethernet, podremos unirlo a nuestra red local. También le podemos poner un adaptador wireless USB, o bien conectarle un disco duro USB, o incluso un adaptador TDT.. Al fin y al cabo, es un sistema Linux completo con lo que tendremos infinidad de drivers a nuestra disposición.. […]

[…] out of it. Lots of people, myself included, are enjoying the idea of using it as a home theater PC. Here is a video of it running XBMC, a home media center application. Stm Labs is even putting together a […]

[…] eine Frage der Zeit ist, bis ein Communityport kommt. Spannend finde ich vorallem den XBMC Port: XBMC running on Raspberry Pi | Raspberry Pi Alles in allem sind die Einsatzbereiche wo man so einen RPi einsetzen kann unbegrenzt; In der […]

for what are the wires that pinned on the board in this video?

please e-mail when able to purchase,thanks

There is a mailing list subscription box on the home page of the website.

[…] one (or possibly several) to see what I can make it do. The boards have already been shown to run XBMC, Quake3 and have the approximate graphical capabilities of the original XBOX – I can’t wait to […]

Love the portability of it all. XBMC on the go wherever you want pretty much, would be great for those that travel a lot!

OK how do I get that build being demo’d? Thanks for the work!

” I’m also looking at getting it put in our default root file system if at all possible.”

That would be awesome, I can’t wait to get mine.

I am just blown away… I really look forward to getting my hands one one of these devices and playing around with it… Just for a cheap XBMC solution it seems as though it will be worth it. It is obvious that the video decoding abilities of the raspberry pi are not in question; however, I would be curious to know if the low amount of memory will put us in the same boat that the old XBMC for XBOX did…namely being limited to a small subset of XBMC’s skins because of the limited resources. Any thoughts?

guys, maybe a dumb question can you sell a box with the raspberry pi computer and your code. May help put some funds back into further development.

Yay it’s fiannly running on Raspberry Pi :D Good news Liz glad I found this :)

Hello! If you happened to install XBMC, write in detail how to do it.
Post videos, this is wrong, because many users are suffering, and you enjoy. This is a symptom of sadomasochism :)

Hi been reading through the various post and I too am excited to get one.

My question is simply, will you guys sell a version pre-loaded with XBMC for us less knowleged peeps?

Cheers

can i feed this iso right into a PI out the door??

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