Just been inspired to get a RPi or a v.small HTPC...

CharlieRich · 15 Jan 2014 at 13:16

One of the staff in the school I work at asked me if I could sort out an installation of Office 2010 on her home PC which according to her was "slow and crap"...

I was expecting her to bring in a massive old tower running XP or something buy instead she brought in a tiny Lenovo ThinkCentre which blew me away with the specs!

- i5 @2.5GHz (forget which model/version)
- 8GB 1600MHz Samsung RAM
- 500GB WD Blue HDD

I instantly fell in love with this tiny marvel and decided I NEED a media centre at home.

I know I could build a small HTPC from scratch and run XBMC but I'm 3/4 of the way through a gaming build at the minute and funds are tight!

Instead I was thinking of a Raspberry Pi as I've heard good things about them and have been playing around with Raspbian OS on one at work (plus they're only 30 quid, how can you argue with that?!)

I want to be able to use XBMC and connect to my 32" HD TV, can anyone recommend any hardware/OS's that will be good?

Cheers

meandu229 · 15 Jan 2014 at 13:44

Im using a pi with openelec for xbmc using samba shares, playback is perfect and navigation isnt amazingly fast (coming from a pc using xbmc) but its about as fast as using a dvd player/freeview menu I would think. For £30 (+ sd cards etc) its amazing you could always ebay it if you fell out with it.
It also has a small enough power foot print to power from usb so if tv has a usb port can plug into that and it will boot up with your TV and if tv supports hdmi cec then you wont even need another remomte.

CharlieRich · 15 Jan 2014 at 13:48

meandu229 said:
It also has a small enough power foot print to power from usb so if tv has a usb port can plug into that and it will boot up with your TV and if tv supports hdmi cec then you wont even need another remomte.

Pretty sure my TV does, thanks meandu.

What kind of peripherals are you using with your Pi? I know they only have two USB's which could be a problem with KB's/mice etc

meandu229 · 15 Jan 2014 at 14:02

CharlieRich said:
Pretty sure my TV does, thanks meandu.

What kind of peripherals are you using with your Pi? I know they only have two USB's which could be a problem with KB's/mice etc

Set mine up with a usb kb/mouse then unplugged them and not plugged them back in since. All I have on mine is ethernet, sdcard and hdmi out. Apparently xbmc runs better with a fast usb stick but you could always use a usb hub if you needed wifi/kb/mouse/usb stick. I also use some xbmc apps on phone/tablet which are great.

CharlieRich · 15 Jan 2014 at 15:27

meandu229 said:
Apparently xbmc runs better with a fast usb stick but you could always use a usb hub if you needed

Have heard the same about that.

I'm assuming you're using an Android phone to control your Pi? I have an iPhone, are there any similar apps out there to your knowledge?

meandu229 · 15 Jan 2014 at 16:11

CharlieRich said:
Have heard the same about that.

I'm assuming you're using an Android phone to control your Pi? I have an iPhone, are there any similar apps out there to your knowledge?

Im using a windows tablet and a windows phone but there are many many xbmc apps on all platforms ios included because the xbmc has a well documented public api.

CharlieRich · 15 Jan 2014 at 17:28

meandu229 said:
Im using a windows tablet and a windows phone but there are many many xbmc apps on all platforms ios included because the xbmc has a well documented public api.

Sweet, thanks very much for your help