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I'm ready to join the HTPC (home theater pc) revolution - what to get?
wraith808:
If you're not dealing with a TV tuner, why not just use XBMC or OpenELEC on a Raspberry Pi?
-AJay (July 10, 2013, 03:43 PM)
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I would like to be able to watch youtube/live streaming.
-mouser (July 09, 2013, 06:33 AM)
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Those two don't go well together. The processor just doesn't handle it well. It also doesn't handle 1080P well. The UI will also be less responsive.
The Pi is good for what it does. But his requirements sort of kick it out the door.
soulwanderer:
I bought a Zotac mini PC. Atom microprocessor ensures a low power consumption.
Zotac + MediaMonkey (huge music library to manage) + XBMC = AWESOME.
Also, as a remote, I use my TV Remote (http://www.pulse-eight.com/store/products/104-usb-hdmi-cec-adapter.aspx), so it is quite user friendly, you do not need to swith remote, just go to the HDMI port of the media center, and keep using it.
This was a quite cost-effective solution (300€ Zotac + 100€ 4TB USB3.0 hard disk + 30€ USB - CEC adapter), and everything works together like a charm. The guys of Pulse Eight also provide a pre-compiled version of XBMC with their drivers & plugins to ensure an easy operation.
AJay:
If you're not dealing with a TV tuner, why not just use XBMC or OpenELEC on a Raspberry Pi?
-AJay (July 10, 2013, 03:43 PM)
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I would like to be able to watch youtube/live streaming.
-mouser (July 09, 2013, 06:33 AM)
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Those two don't go well together. The processor just doesn't handle it well. It also doesn't handle 1080P well. The UI will also be less responsive.
The Pi is good for what it does. But his requirements sort of kick it out the door.
-wraith808 (July 10, 2013, 03:59 PM)
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I haven't tried it with 1080, but I haven't heard of others complaining. Not saying it's not an issue...just that I've never heard that as a complaint before. And as for mouser's requirements, it looks like THE dominant use of the device will be as a simple music player. 1080p is not an issue.
Without that, the only thing that I see as a possible issue is the YouTube piece. I would expect there's an add on though. (And for me, at least, while I occasionally found myself streaming YouTube under my old media center setup, I'd say YouTube streaming was about 1% of my use.)
If you're just streaming from a home hard drive, it's hard to beat a setup that costs less than $50. I'm quite pleased with my setup...except that I'd like to get live TV working, but mouser said he didn't care about that.
(As an aside, most people just leave their Pi on all the time. It's not going to get hot, and the cost is less than any other device you're going to consider.)
wraith808:
I haven't tried it with 1080, but I haven't heard of others complaining. Not saying it's not an issue...just that I've never heard that as a complaint before. And as for mouser's requirements, it looks like THE dominant use of the device will be as a simple music player. 1080p is not an issue.
Without that, the only thing that I see as a possible issue is the YouTube piece. I would expect there's an add on though. (And for me, at least, while I occasionally found myself streaming YouTube under my old media center setup, I'd say YouTube streaming was about 1% of my use.)
-AJay (July 11, 2013, 08:34 AM)
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Raspberry Pi will play 1080p only if its encoded h.264. Otherwise it stutters. This is usually b/c of the sound. However, if you have already encoded your collection, this is a big deal, and transcoding isn't really an option because of problems with streaming.
Though this is not the primary use, he did state it as an important requirement, which is the reason that I brought it up. Not to disparage the Pi or any solution, but to solve his use case.
AJay:
I haven't tried it with 1080, but I haven't heard of others complaining. Not saying it's not an issue...just that I've never heard that as a complaint before. And as for mouser's requirements, it looks like THE dominant use of the device will be as a simple music player. 1080p is not an issue.
Without that, the only thing that I see as a possible issue is the YouTube piece. I would expect there's an add on though. (And for me, at least, while I occasionally found myself streaming YouTube under my old media center setup, I'd say YouTube streaming was about 1% of my use.)
-AJay (July 11, 2013, 08:34 AM)
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Raspberry Pi will play 1080p only if its encoded h.264. Otherwise it stutters. This is usually b/c of the sound. However, if you have already encoded your collection, this is a big deal, and transcoding isn't really an option because of problems with streaming.
Though this is not the primary use, he did state it as an important requirement, which is the reason that I brought it up. Not to disparage the Pi or any solution, but to solve his use case.
-wraith808 (July 11, 2013, 10:10 AM)
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I guess I'm missing something. I see no reference to 1080p in mouser's requirements. I do realize BluRay is 1080p, and I acknowledge that the Pi isn't going to handle that. But that looks like a "nice to have" feature, not a "must have" (based on mouser's initial post).
Since it's a one time payment, it might not be a huge deal to pay out an extra $250 for a machine that can handle BluRay, but if you can settle for plain ole DVD...hard to beat the price of a Pi.
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