XBMC on Raspberry Pi - Wonder if this will work out? (Historical Discussion Thread)

(2012-04-28 06:20)CpTHOOK Wrote:  

(2012-04-28 03:13)Ned Scott Wrote:  

(2012-04-28 02:32)slicemaster Wrote:  So the thing can't even do SD MPEG2? Sad...

I'm glad I didn't just get it to run XBMC...

stop. posting.

Y not allow users to post their experience to educate folks who may be interested in this hardware.... especially if their main purpose for use is XBMC?

U should explain urself

It is one point educate people, another one is just complaining around and not reading posts full.

cheers

gimli

(2012-04-28 10:10)gimli Wrote:  

(2012-04-28 06:20)CpTHOOK Wrote:  

(2012-04-28 03:13)Ned Scott Wrote:  stop. posting.

Y not allow users to post their experience to educate folks who may be interested in this hardware.... especially if their main purpose for use is XBMC?

U should explain urself

It is one point educate people, another one is just complaining around and not reading posts full.

cheers

gimli

Not to go even further off topic, but ....

Another word for "forum" is "discussion board". What I read here (standing on the sideline) is a discussion going on between two people about the pro's and con's of the R-Pi. The only thing is. This discussion is going on between two people with different levels of the understanding of the topic content.

At one side you have the very experienced Gimli and at the other side you have the less experienced Slicemaster (not to be offending).

With all your knowledge Gimli, you come to the conclusion Slicemaster is not reading your posts. Keep in mind, you might be far ahead of him. Reading something is not equal to fully understand it.


To me if you take the time to write a reply with more then 10 lines of text, you are far more anticipating in "a discussion" then everybody around posting this one liners; "stop posting" (again not to be offending)


Everybody: Just don't forget that a lot of people have different levels of knowledge and understanding of the topics. Do you think there will be a high level discussion between a fool and a proffesor? (again again, not to be offending).

The major problem here is expectations. Unrealistic expectations. As Gimli already said somewhere before it's not an i7! People are buying a 25 quid bare board, not a super computer. I have no doubt that every last ounce of available promise will eventually be wrung out of this board by the devs.

People who managed to snag one already, should be grateful they've got one! Man up and be responsible beta testers, supply logs, help find bugs, smooth out performance. Contribute. Whining is not contributing IMHO.

If you understand what the rPi foundation is and what it is for, then all these moaning posts are irrelevant. Take your board, do something with it, contribute your results back to the foundation in time for the educational release later on in the year. This is not a me, me, me thing. That's something that is sadly hard to understand nowadays.....

Sorry if that came off a bit Ranty McRant, but it's how I feel. And I was unlucky enough not to sneak into the first batch, which perhaps motivates my feelings towards those who were (and seem a bit ungrateful)

Unfortunately, the general impression is that XBMC on embedded devices == XBMC on big boxes like an I7. While we XBMC devs can work what seems to be miracles, we can not violate the basic laws on pony power and embedded devices lacking the pure CPU grunt tend to disappoint those seeking otherwise.

Embedded devices can have certain characteristics. For example, some can handle SD mpeg2 with CPU, some can handle it with hardware codecs and some just cannot handle it at all. That's life in the embedded zone. For rPi, they choose not to license mpeg2 to keep the costs down (someone has to pay for it) and that's that. Their target audience is much bigger than the home media center crowd and that drives their hardware configuration choices.

So if your viewing content is h264, rPi is prefect, if not... Move along, these are not the devices you seek. No amount of whining will change those facts

(2012-04-28 06:20)CpTHOOK Wrote:  Y not allow users to post their experience to educate folks who may be interested in this hardware.... especially if their main purpose for use is XBMC?

U should explain urself

I'm not saying he can't actually post about this anymore, and I should have made my post clearer that it was just what I was thinking, and not some moderation instructions.

There's a difference between soapboxing and just having a discussion. We, at XBMC, can't do anything about this. It's well documented and we've discussed it several times. At this point he's not discussing it, he's just repeating, and what he's repeating isn't even accurate.

I should have just posted a facepalm.

This certainly is an interesting platform for xbmc.
I know that it is specced to run HD and im sure that as time goes on more and more codecs will become available as long as the demand is there.
Even if HD playback doesnt ever become fantastic I can still see people using this for non HD files.
This has been been out for any time yet and already people have been showing xbmc running on it in various youtube videos.

Personally im thinking it would be perfect for trips away from home and can see myself in hotel rooms attaching it to the supplied tv with a usb pen full of watchable content.
I wouldnt bother with a mouse and keyboard just a mini wireless device for controlling or my Android phone with xbmc remote should I have a wireless connection available.
For the price its perfect for such occasions imho.

Hey everyone, I am sorry My posts have generated so much... polarized dialog. It was not my intention to insult, belittle, or bitch at anyone in the community here or the Raspberry Pi foundation (not looking to stand on a soap box here). I am not ungrateful, and I do understand the issues at hand regarding the Pi and its primary purpose. I think what they have done for the world is something great, putting a device like this on the market at such a low price-point is truly astonishing. The awesome guys here at XBMC have also done amazing things and I hope to be able to contribute to the work done here sooner rather than later. Anyways, Although I consider the content of my posts to be an accurate assessment of the current situation, there is no doubt that some less than neutral sentiments may have leaked out in the tone of my messages, and for this I am truly apologetic.

After all, the primary reason I bought the Pi was to experiment with ARM development, and to that end the Pi has met ALL my expectations, and the foundation has met all its goals. In time as others have noted, and with the help and positive feedback of the community, perhaps it will also develop into a platform which meets other needs as well, but as for now, I am happy with what I have.

Cheers,

I am among the luck few to receive one of raspberry pi by last Friday, i.e. the first 10K batch. After playing with it for 2 days here is my impression so far and hope it will give you some ideas if you plan to install xbmc on raspberry pi.

Good: Excellent h264 video playback with resolution up to 720p. Playback is very smooth and no noticeable horizontal tearing. I reckon much better than ATV 1 with crystalhd. Plenty of memory (50MB over 128MB setup) when xbmc is running and during playback. I did not notice swap is being used so far. This is unthinkable with ATV1 which has 256MB memory (note you cannot directly comapre memeory usage between two platforms).

Bad: CPU usage is far too much with xbmc gui. top reports over 95% cpu usage during idle. This seems to be xbmc specific "bug" and has been reported by other users: http://trac.xbmc.org/ticket/12888 and http://trac.xbmc.org/ticket/12614. As a result of that addons (python script) running extremely slow. I have to wait more than 10 seconds for the script/addon to respond for single button press. Dirty region did not work for me as I saw blank screen if its enabled.

Bottom line is Raspberry pi will work well with xbmc and if developers can sort the high CPU usage issues and this could be an ideal platform for XBMC. Huge thanks to those involved to get it working.

If you do try out xbmc on raspberry please report bugs via the official ticket channel.

Openelec was used to test xbmc as I cannot get it compiled without fail under native debian environment.

Thanks for the info s7mx1, much appreciated

Just noticed that high bitrate video playback over network may let down by the in-built network card (usb interface). Hopefully it can be resolved by a driver update.