*** Official Kodi (née XBMC) Thread ***

Hi Guys

Been thinking about building a unit for a while now, can you look at the below and see if I have missed anything, plus add any helpful direction :)

  1. RPi unit (not sure of the cheapest place to buy)?
  2. 8gb SD Card
  3. 16gb USB pen
  4. I have a 2tb network storage (Mybook Live)
  5. I have HDMI spare on my 40" LED Samsung TV
  6. I will be connecting it to the network via a LAN cable to my Sky Hub

Can someone kindly point me to where I go from there

Many thanks

Mart
 
iMacMart said:
Hi Guys

Been thinking about building a unit for a while now, can you look at the below and see if I have missed anything, plus add any helpful direction :)

  1. RPi unit (not sure of the cheapest place to buy)?
  2. 8gb SD Card
  3. 16gb USB pen
  4. I have a 2tb network storage (Mybook Live)
  5. I have HDMI spare on my 40" LED Samsung TV
  6. I will be connecting it to the network via a LAN cable to my Sky Hub
Click to expand...

A power supply & HDMI cable is the only thing missing, download the software from your choice, I use http://www.raspbmc.com/
I can't tell you the cheapest place as they will be competitors but a quick google of 'buy raspberry pi uk' will help lots.
 
mad_allan said:
A power supply & HDMI cable is the only thing missing, download the software from your choice, I use http://www.raspbmc.com/
I can't tell you the cheapest place as they will be competitors but a quick google of 'buy raspberry pi uk' will help lots.
Click to expand...

PSU for the pi box itself? They don't come with one then :eek:

Got a spare HDMI coming out of my TV so thats no problem

I'll take a look ;)

Many thanks
 
You can power the Pi from most spare USB ports, the ones on your TV should do. Thats what I do, not had any issues. You will need a micro USB cable though, the ones that come with most modern phones.

You may also want a case for the Pi, just search eBay and get one you like. I got mine for like £2.50, its completely clear. It's designed by Adafruit. Also I assume you plan on controlling it by your Mobile/Tablet? if not you'll also need a remote, you can also buy these from eBay quite cheap.

Pi connected by ethernet will be fine to stream full 1080p video, its very capable. The menus can be a little laggy, but only if you're used to it on a fast PC.
 
MouseMat2004 said:
You can power the Pi from most spare USB ports, the ones on your TV should do. Thats what I do, not had any issues. You will need a micro USB cable though, the ones that come with most modern phones.

You may also want a case for the Pi, just search eBay and get one you like. I got mine for like £2.50, its completely clear. It's designed by Adafruit. Also I assume you plan on controlling it by your Mobile/Tablet? if not you'll also need a remote, you can also buy these from eBay quite cheap.

Pi connected by ethernet will be fine to stream full 1080p video, its very capable. The menus can be a little laggy, but only if you're used to it on a fast PC.
Click to expand...

Hi

Yes I have an iPad and HTC One so either or as a controller, will check out the cases, whats the micro usb for?

Thanks
 
Subliminal Aura said:
Some of us want more comprehensive controls than what CEC has
Click to expand...

What can't you do with CEC? In XBMC you can rebind everything anyhow.

For example (without rebinding) almost every key on my TV remote works in XBMC, the number keys for instance let me alpha search my library. It is far more than just play, stop etc.. But you normally have to enable extended control on the TV. Info button gives info, Options button gives context etc all out of the box.

I rebound: Red= XBMC Home, Blue = Mark Watched, Yellow = Queue and Green = fullscreen toggle.
 
Last edited:
True that, CEC does everything I need to use XBMC. The RPI supposrts CEC out the box I think.

Before that I had a wireless (not IR) remote and that was fantastic too.
 
FerretBoy said:
What can't you do with CEC? In XBMC you can rebind everything anyhow.
Click to expand...

True, it's the same effort as what I'm doing but tbh I think I'm not much of a CEC fan as I prefer to have a separate virtual remote just for XBMC mainly because of fearing to accidentally turn it off :o
//edit waiting for you to reply by saying 'well you can unbind the power button :p'

I do use CEC in the bedroom though where it's just a TV / single xbmc instance
 
Last edited:
iMacMart said:
Hi

Yes I have an iPad and HTC One so either or as a controller, will check out the cases, whats the micro usb for?

Thanks
Click to expand...

The MicroUSB is how you power the Pi. Same cable as you would charge the HTC One.

As for remotes, I recently purchased this remote: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380786641711 for my Bros Pi setup. It is plug and play in RaspBMC and works pretty well. As said CEC also works fairly well. Cheapest option would be to see how you get on with CEC or the mobile remotes (Use Yatse on HTC One, or XBMC Commander on the iPad, better than the official remote apps)

Also this is the case I got: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=271343700942
 
MouseMat2004 said:
As for remotes, I recently purchased this remote: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380786641711 for my Bros Pi setup.
Click to expand...

OMG that's the one I got... It's a ***** to work with as it seems to sends IR key combinations. I have it remapped via evrouter so I can map extra keys and make custom functions

root@media:~# psg evr
root 2024 1 0 Dec21 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/evrouter --config /_dev/evrouter/chinavision.txt /dev/input/by-id/usb-1d57_ad02-event-kbd /dev/input/by-id/usb-1d57_ad02-if01-event-mouse /dev/input/by-id/usb-1d57_ad02-if01-mouse
 
Subliminal Aura said:
OMG that's the one I got... It's a ***** to work with as it seems to sends IR key combinations. I have it remapped via evrouter so I can map extra keys and make custom functions

root@media:~# psg evr
root 2024 1 0 Dec21 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/evrouter --config /_dev/evrouter/chinavision.txt /dev/input/by-id/usb-1d57_ad02-event-kbd /dev/input/by-id/usb-1d57_ad02-if01-event-mouse /dev/input/by-id/usb-1d57_ad02-if01-mouse
Click to expand...

Yeah it doesnt surprise me it sends strange key combinations. All the cheap ones seem to do this, the cheap one I got a few years ago for my PC XBMC used to send stuff like right mouse click and other random keys to open certain things. Would kind of work fine in Windows Media Centre but didnt play well on the PC in general. I did get that one perfectly mapped for OpenElec on the HTPC with a Harmony remote after some fiddling.

The one I linked above did seem to work fine for RaspBMC, not every single key worked but all the main ones did, even the fake mouse with left/right click. I figured this route would be better for him as he would never had worked it out else!
 
Was going to grab one from a small chain of electrical shops locally but they only had a starter kit and it was £79.99 :eek:

Sod that ... Going to sit down this afternoon and search everything I need and get it ordered up..

Does it have to be a fast/large SD card and USB pen?

Cheers
 
I'm going to pop my PI on the mm in next few days mate. Can give you first refusal when I post up (I know I can't sell outside mm but a heads up as we dealt with in there before).
 
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