I've had a collection of RaspberyPi's for several years. I've used 'em for simple music players (running Raspbian Linux), simple low-power dedicated use servers (4watts is darn cheap to operate annually), even gave one to my ten-year-old to play with.
I'm a big fan. Cheap computing! (and getting cheaper, they reportedly have a $4.99 stick-of-chewing-gum sized one out).
But the new Raspberry Pi 2 Model B is a whole new animal!
Now, with a gigabyte of ram, and a faster processor, I've stepped it up to being a primary Home Theater box!
To get there, I added a nice aluminum Flirc case, and a USB remote interface, along with a Class 10 memory card. And to make it run efficiently I went with an OSMC Kodi home theater image.
Yes, used this way it is a 'Linux' operating system, it's not your standard Windows, but A) It's free! and B) It's just about a turn-key prospect.
OSMC Kodi comes as a simple image, that you stick on a card, and pretty much boot it up and you're off to the races for a home theater box, that can play local media. The nice thing about running a hard-ware targeted option like OSMC (or OpenELEC) is that the image knows how to use and configure itself for the hardware, which gets you up and running without a lot of monkeying around.
I've been running it via HDMI into my tv, and using it to play content on my Synology NAS box. So far it's played every format I've thrown at it (avi, mp4, mkv, in mpeg2, divx, Xvid & h264), with SD and HD resolutions (up to 1080p). I couldn't see any real bogging down during playback.
UPDATE 1/5/2016: OK, I have found one specific area that the RPi2-B does bog down as a KODI media center, for video playback: Highly-compressed hi-rez h264-encoded files. I've seen it several times in the last week from both mkv & mp4 files. Yardstick: Any content in the 60min range, that's less than 200M is a candidate for bogged down frame-rates. It'll play, it's just fairly annoying. I When I've checked these they're in the 720 or higher res level; In a pinch I could certainly unpack and re-encode them with a less extreme compression level, so far I've simply shifted to a less compressed file, eg a file that's 220+ (if like myself you're not a stickler for high-res).
Note: mpeg2 hardware decoding is a sub five dollar license addon from the raspberrypi site.
No I'm not going to try to run a 4K interface on an RPI - frankly I don't even have a TV in that range, let alone consider streaming that kind of bandwidth off the net. :P But for 720 & 1080 or less resolutions, I'm happy as a clam with the results & cost.
If you've got a collection of phone videos, or other local content, this may just be all you need..
For streaming content, out of the box, you can easily add a Youtube plugin. Unfortunately, the biggest hurdles, when compared to my Roku stick or WDTVLive box, is that you aren't going to be able to find native Linux plugins for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc, for aany Linux-based box. But, there is a common work around for that option as well: A component calle Playon, will let your linux home theater leverage a Windows pc's ability to run a native component for those services. Not free, but also not very expensive either (haven't gone that route myself; I own a Roku et al).
I also own a WDTVLive box, which until now has substantially occupied this 'play local media' niche. Yes it plays just about every format known to man, and it has functional Netflix, and several other commercial components. But the fact is, the WDTVLive is fairly flakey as well. It's well known that using some of the service plugins can require a manual reboot after use. And it's media management and scanning functions are a pain (takes several minutes on startup to complete a fresh scan, before the Interface is ready to use).
So all things considered, combining an RPI running OSMC\Kodi, with a Roku or other streaming box (for commercial services) is rapidly moving me into final 'cord-cutting' territory.
| Standing screen display size | 7 Centimeters |
|---|---|
| RAM | 1 GB SDRAM |
| Memory Speed | 900 MHz |
| Wireless Type | 900 MHz Radio Frequency |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 4 |
