Raspberry Pi - $35 Linux computer

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masterluke said:
nick.lidgett - I heard you can get them in maplins now\very soon. I'm not sure about a case but they have got Pi's + a kit with all the bits you'll likely need

Radiation - Saying that "artificial limitations are wrong" is rather silly. The people who invested time and money to make something "should let it be used for free"? Is your time free? If you work do you expect to be paid?

The chip manufacturer (broadcom) has sensibly built in support for technology that can be switched on and off (depending upon licencing). This means that if a particular technology in not required then it can be sold without that license more cheaply. This means that ONLY the people who need a technology have to pay for it. The is WAY fairer than everyone having to pay for stuff they won't use.

I would also congratulate the Pi Foundation for the selling price on these codecs. It would have been very easy for them to round these prices up to a fiver to help fill up the foundations bank account. They chose not to, and to sell for the lowest they could. If only others had the same attitude.
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I get why they might do it but there's a right way to make money and a wrong way, clearly if the hardware is capable then it costs them nothing to allow it to run after it's already been included, the deal should be been between the chip maker and codec people and nothing to do with us.

You might not understand why such business practices are questionable but i assure you they are, i mean how far could it go? what if intel one day released a new chip that was capable of 10ghz but started out at only 1ghz and each addition 1ghz costs £100?

If the hardware is capable and costs them only so much to make then adding artificial limitations is pathetic.
 
Radiation said:
..it costs them nothing to allow it to run after it's already been included, the deal should be been between the chip maker and codec people and nothing to do with us.
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So you are saying that a deal should have been struck between broadcom and the licence owners to licence all hardware to hardware decode mpeg2? The net effect would be to increase the price of the pi to everyone.. if we need mpeg2 or not?

Options are..

Nobody pays = Mpeg2 hardware is not used or someone gets sued for unlicenced decoding
Broadcom pay = Chip production cost increases = All consumers pay more
Pi foundation pay = Pi production cost increases = All consumers pay more
Consumer pays = Only those who need it pay more
 
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Finally got my PI setup to play films on Raspbmc. Was having issues getting it to mount an external harddrive so thought I'd give it a quick shot just connecting to a share on my pc..... Which worked straight away - that's me no longer bothering trying to get a separate harddrive working, no need!
Plays 720p content perfectly, so close to playing 1080p smooth, even the high quality copy of Avatar I have nearly works... small stutter every 5-10 seconds. Hopefully they can edge a bit more out of the hardware with the coding :D
 
I'm using OpenElec to play 1080p content on a 925mhz pi off a NAS. No problem whatsoever here, no slow down, no stutter.
 
PinkFloyd said:
small stutter every 5-10 seconds
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The classic symptom of down-mixing DTS.

Firstly, change the System->Video->Playback->A/V sync method to be Audio Clock. This should reduce the frequency of the stutters, if not get rid of them altogether.

Secondly, overclock! Grab a copy of this and copy it onto the FAT partition on the SD card. Then uncomment the following line and set the value to 900.
Code: 
#arm_freq=700
 
I've tried Openelec, Raspbmc, XBMC personally compiled on Raspbian, and Xbian.

I have to say that Xbian is quite a bit better than the alternatives for me. Give it a shot if you havent already. The GUI feels a lot smoother. 1080p is flawless here, but I have an AV amp so the Pi doesnt need to downmix to stereo.

There are suggestions of hardware dts downmixing on the way so this could be fixed soon for everyone. Some hooks were added to the firmware to support it. When this happened before (for mpeg2) the hardware decoding came through fairly swiftly afterwards.

Overclocking definitely helps. Xbian comes with an overclock by default. 850mhz + a SDRAM overclock I think. Seems stable on mine.

Evilpaul said:
Grab a copy of this and copy it onto the FAT partition on the SD card.
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..that is awesome. The Pi should have come with that by default. Did you do that?
 
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Cheers guys, will have a play tonight. A workmate is currently having the same issue as me using Xbian - so I'll let him know about the tweak and overclock.

Will report back :)
 
If I were you I would be contacting the maintainers of the various distro's and showing them your file - including this by default would be helpful to newbies. Its really handy having all the info about what various options do there in the file.
 
Dear customer,



Thanks again for your Raspberry Pi order. We are busy working with the suppliers who provide components for your Raspberry Pi to ensure you receive your order as quickly as possible.



Since receiving your order, we have been advised that our next batch of approximately 40,000 Raspberry Pi’s will now be arriving during September, with further deliveries expected in October. This delay is due to the very high level of demand on the core Raspberry Pi processor chip. Unfortunately, this means that your order will be delayed up to the 30th of September, although we are trying to reduce this as much as possible. As soon as we receive confirmation of any improvements from our manufacturers, we will advise you.



Please accept our apologies for this delay and be assured we are doing everything we can to ensure the fastest possible delivery of your Raspberry Pi.





Yours Sincerely







RS Components and Allied Electronics
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FUUUUUUU!!!! :mad:

I ordered 21st June, then my order was delayed because the clear case wasn't in stock, and now this.

The words **** up, and brewery come to mind.
 
I got that same e-mail, even after cancelling my RS order. Bizarre.

Anyway, my Pi just successfully booted into Raspbmc at 925Mhz. I'm wary of going higher, but I think that'll do me. I also just found out that it doesn't seem to see my external HDD, which is odd since it found my pen drive without any trouble. The HDD has its own power source too, I'm not even powering it from the Pi. That's a bit of a blow, I was hoping to use that drive with the Pi as a media centre. Looks like I'll have to make do with a large pen drive for the time being.

Sadly, it also means I haven't yet tested it's video playing abilities, since all my videos were on that drive. I'll copy some over to a pen drive and try them later. I'm not entirely sure precisely what formats the Pi can and can't play anyway, without requiring the additional licenses.
 
PiKe said:
FUUUUUUU!!!! :mad:

I ordered 21st June, then my order was delayed because the clear case wasn't in stock, and now this.

The words **** up, and brewery come to mind.
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Cancel your order with RS, and order with Farnell, I did the same and had my (2nd) Pi within 4 days.
 
sjt269 said:
I got that same e-mail, even after cancelling my RS order. Bizarre.

Anyway, my Pi just successfully booted into Raspbmc at 925Mhz. I'm wary of going higher, but I think that'll do me. I also just found out that it doesn't seem to see my external HDD, which is odd since it found my pen drive without any trouble. The HDD has its own power source too, I'm not even powering it from the Pi. That's a bit of a blow, I was hoping to use that drive with the Pi as a media centre. Looks like I'll have to make do with a large pen drive for the time being.

Sadly, it also means I haven't yet tested it's video playing abilities, since all my videos were on that drive. I'll copy some over to a pen drive and try them later. I'm not entirely sure precisely what formats the Pi can and can't play anyway, without requiring the additional licenses.
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I have tried to get it to boot with 900 no luck at all, maybe its my pi board, set it 850 and it works much better then the 700 :-)

will try it with my other PI at 900 first then if ok, set it to 950 If people reading this thinks thats a bad idea, please say so thanks :-)

Kenneth.
 
Given that it's 700MHz at standard, and 800MHz on Raspbmc (I think, or is it 850?) then I think 925MHz is a pretty good result without any overvolting involved, it's higher than I expected. I am tempted to try even higher tbh, 950 is beckoning, but I suspect I won't get too much higher without it needing more volts. I seem to recall some people have broken the 1GHz barrier with overvolting, but that's a little riskier than I'm prepared to try.

I wish I had more time to put into this thing, there are some amazing things that can be done by people with the time to really learn how to use it. It feels like a cop out just using it for a media centre when I see what others have done with it. The synthesiser on the Rasp Pi homepage (I think) was pretty impressive, and I have a few crazy ideas of my own that I'd love to try, I just don't have the time at the moment. It's just a shame my imagination roams so far beyond my ability. :p

:edit:

Alas, sadly unstable at 950MHz, but I have now verified that 1080p videos play fine (those for which I have the codecs, at least!). The only issue I've noticed is momentary image corruption if I skip to a point mid-way through a video, which doesn't happen on my PC, but it disappears almost instantly.
 
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Didn't get a chance to play about with mine this evening after working late, ended up watching a few random tv episodes on it though!
Got friday off of work so aiming to try a few alternative Media Centre OS builds and maybe a bit of an overclock. Then follow that up with building a case out of something - lego?! - will require a trip to the parents... :D
 
I just bought a cheap case off eBay, £2.99 + delivery. It's one of the clear perspex ones. Can't go too far wrong for that price - the worst that can happen is that I'll have to mod the case a little if it's got anything wrong with it. I'd have preferred an opaque colour, but I've acquired fairly extensive experience in spraypainting things recently, so I can always resort to that if transparent annoys me.

If anyone has had bad experiences with these things, just don't bother telling me, since the order is placed and its too late now. :p
 
Looking at getting 3 of these.

1 for home as a media center for the tv for movies and music, and the 2nd to use at work as a web host to host some forums and wiki.

What software should I be looking at getting for achieving this?


3rd will be for playing around with :)
 
Fired up Xbian, onto an older slower SD card. Despite that it seems to run well.
Copes with most 1080p films fine, however some of the really big ones seem to stutter :(

I've set the System->Video->Playback->A/V sync method to be Audio Clock and it helped a little - just not enough for Avatar!

Menu is so much more responsive than Raspmbc
 
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