Raspberry Pi as media Player?

[Ian J]

As per subject.

We currently use a WDTV but it's annoying plugging/unplugging the hard drive to add items to it to view.

I want something we can link to our network and add items to the hard drive remotely.

We currently rip all Blurays and DVD's to MKV and play them back on the WDTV, how does the RP cope with 1080p MKV files.

Any other issues we should know about?

 

[TrashyMG]

I have a Raspberry Pi and use it to watch videos occasionally, but not typically I use it more for electronic projects.. I'm telling you for a device that spec wise is not as impressive as the Pandora It can handle just about any video I throw at it even 1080p .h264 encoded MKV files.. I've only used the straight up Rasbian distribution and the best player happens to be a command line program omxplayer.. However there are other distributions that you may want to try out and it seems have a more graphical interface: 

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/tag/media-centre

 

[PokeParadox]

I personally have my Raspberry Pi setup with RaspBMC and it works really well for me.

 

[Ian J]

XBMC would be my 1st choice for a front end.

Can you add and remove files from the RP via network using that?

 

[crow_riot]

i have openelec running on my r-pi and it plays everything i need.


since i still have an old crt tv, i dont care too much about hd movies, but a friend of mine uses it for them without any problems. it starts to stutter with full hd 3d movies, but thats in fact 2 hd movies at the same time... i'd not buy anything else than a r-pi as a media player at the moment

 

[Ian J]

Has anyone tried DTS-HD audio via the RP?

For the WDTV I have to convert the DTS-HD to DTS or 5.1 for it to work, another reason to get rid of the WDTV.

I just need it to pass-thru the audio so that my amp can decode it.

 

[PokeParadox]

You can delete in XBMC anyway - just have to enable it in the appearance settings.

You can use ssh to copy files over and I would say you  could get a samba share setup although I never got around to it personally...

If you use HDMI and have some way to get this to your amp then you can pass through DTS/DD5.1 etc

I recently got a switch/splitter and it passes through the sound via TOSLINK/Optical works perfectly.(Although sadly the Wii U outputs uncompressed LPCM and I can't get surround working in that case.)

 

[Ian J]

The amp has HDMI pass thru which makes life a lot easier.

 

[WizardStan]

I'm telling you for a device that spec wise is not as impressive as the Pandora It can handle just about any video I throw at it even 1080p .h264 encoded MKV files.

This because its hardware decoder actually had commercial support, unlike TI that said "oh yeah, you can totally decode h264 with the C64x, you just need to write all the code yourself."

 

[Ian J]

It's there a recommended controller method other than keyboard & mouse?

 

[PokeParadox]

Android phone and Yatse app.

 

[Trip]

It's there a recommended controller method other than keyboard & mouse?

Pandora with Master Control running

Getting one of these for xmas. Can't wait to program and hack hardware on it

 

[bsp]

I'm telling you for a device that spec wise is not as impressive as the Pandora It can handle just about any video I throw at it even 1080p .h264 encoded MKV files.

This because its hardware decoder actually had commercial support, unlike TI that said "oh yeah, you can totally decode h264 with the C64x, you just need to write all the code yourself."

yeah, that totally sucks. The HW is there but for some reason they did not bother to document / support it properly.


In my experience, TI never was particularly good at providing SW support. They stance is sth along the lines of 'hey, we  just provide the HW and our multi-million-unit customers write the SW all by themselves, anyways'.


Reminds me of the most ridiculous thing I have read on this forum which went sth. like this 'HW devs are all the rage, SW devs are just users'.


Geez, w/o proper SW support for it, any HW is utterly useless.


But hey, at least the DSP in the Pandora is properly documented (by TI), and easily accessible, while the one in the RasPi is just a useless pile of logic gates, AFAIK

p.s.: not to 'diss' the RasPi in any way, it's a great device for a very low price, and plays in a completely different league than the Pandora.

 

[elwing]

I'm using RaspBMC and everything work correctly out of the box, nothing to configure no need of command line tool... it's simply great, I'm using that with a MCE remote and a UPNP server on my NAS. I can only recommand this... for the price it's hard to beat that.

edit:

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Raspberry_Pi/FAQ

 

[Ian J]

The WDTV has issues with Bluray rips that have 23.97FPS, I have to manually select 1080p @ 24fps, otherwise panning shots have a slight stutter.

Similar to pre LCD days when some DVD players dropped frames on NTSC 60FPS discs to get a PAL 50FPS.

Can anyone confirm that the RP has no issues with 50, 60 or 23.97 FPS material?

 

[levi]

I'm telling you for a device that spec wise is not as impressive as the Pandora It can handle just about any video I throw at it even 1080p .h264 encoded MKV files.

This because its hardware decoder actually had commercial support, unlike TI that said "oh yeah, you can totally decode h264 with the C64x, you just need to write all the code yourself."

The trick is to get someone who works for TI on board in writing the firmware, it seems.

 

[DaMummy]

does anybody here use openelec with sabnzbd+ on their raspberry pi? i cant for the life of me figure out how to set it up

 

[Ian J]

Which remote would people recommend for use with the RP instead of a keyboard and mouse?

I was thinking something like this:

 

[TrashyMG]

Which remote would people recommend for use with the RP instead of a keyboard and mouse? I was thinking something like this:

For keyboard/mouse  this is what I use, It's not quite as small as the one you posted, but it's durable and bit cheaper in price.

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wireless-Keyboard-Built-In-Multi-Touch/dp/B005DKZTMG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395401802&sr=8-1&keywords=Logitech+K400+Wireless+Touch+Keyboard

Although I bought it cheaper at a local office supply store..

 

[comradekingu]

Have you looked at wdlxtv?  Supports nfs