Raspberry Pi

[wayner]

The Raspberry Pi is an ultra-low-cost ($25for 128MB, $35 for 256MB) credit-card sized Linux computer with a 700MHz ARM CPU for teaching computer programming to children. It is supposed to be able to support high def video. It uses a Broadcom BCM2835 chip that is common in some of the Media Extenders.

Is this a potential low end extender replacement or is 256MB not enough to do anything?


http://elinux.org/RaspberryPiBoard

[ckewinjones]

I can't comment on the memory requirements for building an extender (I'm a software guy, not a hardware guy). But the main roadblock to building an extender replacement for SageTV is not the availability of a suitable hardware board, but the fact that the protocol that the SageTV server uses to talk to the extender is not publicly documented (and likely never will be). That makes it very hard to write the software for the extender no matter how cheap or widely available the suitable hardware may be.

At some point Google might open up this protocol, if (A) they decide that they are going to re-start supporting SageTV at all, and (B) they decide they no longer want to be in the extender hardware business. It's more likely, however, that Google's "SageTV II" (i.e. whatever it is that Jeff is working on) will work with public, standard protocols (DLNA, RVU, etc). If that is the case, then building an extender becomes possible, but it also becomes unnecessary since you can probably just buy an extender from an established manufacturer that supports the same public protocols.

[wayner]

I was thinking of a Linux based extender assuming that you could buy Sage client licenses for Linux.

[drewg]

Originally Posted by wayner

I was thinking of a Linux based extender assuming that you could buy Sage client licenses for Linux.

Raspberri Pi is Arm, the SagwTV linux client is x86, so it is a non-starter.

What I'm wondering is if this thing can do a decent job with MPEG-2. A lot of these low-end chips seem to only be able to handle more modern stuff like H.264 (Apple TV-2, Roku).. Assuming it does handle MPEG-2, I could certainly imagine running some sort of client software on it & using it as an extender for MythTV. Mythfrontend is probably too bloated to fit in 256MB, but I imagine xbmc could work. And I remember reading a rumour that the xbmc devs have had early access to this.

So I'm very excited about this.. It could be my backup plan. If it works as an extender, $35 is cheap enough to buy 15 or 20 "just in case"

Drew

[emveepee]

I opted to buy one of these http://www.solid-run.com/products/cubox, arriving in a month or so. Inside though is a similar dev board device and it runs linux, XBMC now and I am playing around getting a NextPVR client on it. The CuBox is a lot more $$$ but it's a complete unit for an extender with the case and ir receiver and 1GB memory. I'm not really worried about MPEG2, but I have concerns about de-interlacing and 1080i

Martin

[MattHelm]

Originally Posted by wayner

The Raspberry Pi is an ultra-low-cost ($25for 128MB, $35 for 256MB) credit-card sized Linux computer with a 700MHz ARM CPU for teaching computer programming to children. It is supposed to be able to support high def video. It uses a Broadcom BCM2835 chip that is common in some of the Media Extenders.

First, I'd get the "B" version, as it has Ethernet.

Originally Posted by wayner

Is this a potential low end extender replacement or is 256MB not enough to do anything?

640K is enough for anyone!

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by emveepee

I opted to buy one of these http://www.solid-run.com/products/cubox, arriving in a month or so. Inside though is a similar dev board device and it runs linux, XBMC now and I am playing around getting a NextPVR client on it. The CuBox is a lot more $$$ but it's a complete unit for an extender with the case and ir receiver and 1GB memory. I'm not really worried about MPEG2, but I have concerns about de-interlacing and 1080i

Martin

That is an interesting box. Keep us posted on your thoughts and let us know what you build with it.

[willieb]

If it runs xbmc, doesn't that mean it can run Plex?

[drewg]

Originally Posted by willieb

If it runs xbmc, doesn't that mean it can run Plex?

The cubox or the Raspberry Pi?

Is there currently any open-source port of Plex on non-x86? Is it based off of XBMC?

I could be wrong, but I suspect that main-line XBMC support will happen first for the Raspberry Pi since XBMC devs are working on it. From what I understand, the Cubox people forked XBMC, and who knows when it will be re-integrated.

Drew

[emveepee]

Originally Posted by willieb

If it runs xbmc, doesn't that mean it can run Plex?

From the client perspective Plex can be consider a glorified UPnP player, a client could run on most platforms. The client for my Samsung TV is written in HTML and Javascript.

Martin

[emveepee]

Originally Posted by drewg

I could be wrong, but I suspect that main-line XBMC support will happen first for the Raspberry Pi since XBMC devs are working on it. From what I understand, the Cubox people forked XBMC, and who knows when it will be re-integrated.

Hard to say, only a handful of people have the CuBox right now, but there certainly is interest already in aligning the work. The development "teams" for these kind of thing really are based on a few people who really are dedicated to making their platform work. I think as all the ARM platforms get together things will get easier.

It's sad in a way that all these discussions for this new class of "PC" seem to focus on running XBMC.

Martin

[wayner]

Originally Posted by emveepee

It's sad in a way that all these discussions for this new class of "PC" seem to focus on running XBMC.

That's probably because XBMC is still Open Source. If some of the other solutions (ie Plex) are working on a client for one of these systems we are less likely to know that until they are ready to release a product. That is not unlike Sage - they tried not to promise something ahead of time.

[emveepee]

Originally Posted by wayner

That's probably because XBMC is still Open Source. If some of the other solutions (ie Plex) are working on a client for one of these systems we are less likely to know that until they are ready to release a product. That is not unlike Sage - they tried not to promise something ahead of time.

Sorry I wasn't clear. My point was that there are so many linux apps, including lots of multimedia alternatives, servers and NAS options but the question is always "Can it run XBMC?". I think that plug form-factor computers do have a home in the home, it just hasn't happened yet.

Martin

[drewg]

Originally Posted by emveepee

Sorry I wasn't clear. My point was that there are so many linux apps, including lots of multimedia alternatives, servers and NAS options but the question is always "Can it run XBMC?". I think that plug form-factor computers do have a home in the home, it just hasn't happened yet.

Martin

Actually, in terms of a front end media player for linux, I tend to prefer mythfrontend over anything else, including XBMC. More information and functionality, and less bling. (I'm a malore fan on SageTV). Though that seems to be changing as MythTV evolves. I'm a huge fan of their "timestretch" mode, where you can playback video at fast speed with undistorted audio. I used to set up playback classes so that all my wife's boring documentaries would get played back at 1.25x realtime

Drew

[emveepee]

Originally Posted by drewg

Actually, in terms of a front end media player for linux, I tend to prefer mythfrontend over anything else, including XBMC.

I have the same reservations about de-interacing 1080i I mentioned earlier. using mythfrontend on these devices, I think their capabilities still need to be determined. It's a problem with many linux video cards http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Deinterlacing Certainly timestretch adds to the problem.

Martin

[drewg]

Originally Posted by emveepee

I have the same reservations about de-interacing 1080i I mentioned earlier. using mythfrontend on these devices, I think their capabilities still need to be determined. It's a problem with many linux video cards http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Deinterlacing Certainly timestretch adds to the problem.

Martin

Indeed. MythTV's bad software playback quality is what brought me to SageTV.

But if the hardware works, and they can throw the whole thing over the fence to the hardware (eg, Nvidia VDPAU), then I've heard things look considerably better.

Drew

[drewg]

The XBMC port has been announced. See http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/571

Still looking for details on how it handles MPEG2-PS & 1080i deinterlace.

EDIT: It seems to be a matter of codec support, and them not wanting to spend $$ to unlock codec support in the broadcom core. Apparently, the license for just AAC audio accounts for 7% of the price of the box. There's supposed to be an upcoming blog entry with respect to codecs. Ideally, we'd be able to buy a codec license to unlock support for all the codecs the chip supports.

Drew

[drewg]

The blog entry finally arrived :
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/592

They've only licensed support for mpeg4 / h.264. They're talking about maybe trying to license mpeg2 sometime in the future, with mpeg2 as an added cost item.

Drew

[g-man]

Looks like XBMC is getting heavily involved in the progression of this little device.

http://www.stmlabs.com/2012/01/30/ra...r-raspberrypi/

If they allow for the add in of MPEG-2 I will be a very happy camper.

[sflamm]

Anyone considered using a Raspberry Pi (http://www.raspberrypi.org) as a SageTV client?

I would think that we can run the linux distro for SageTV on it - plugs directly into HDMI port. Perfect replacement for HD300?

Thoughts?!

* merged *