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Lyme™ · (This post was last modified: 2014-01-27, 00:20 by Lyme™.)

Hello everyone, I'm very new to XBMC and would like to give it a go.

I'm looking for something just for watching live TV. Mostly some daytime TV talk shows and live sports. Streaming live NBA, MLB, NHL games from around the country that I don't get on my local channels. If I can get PPV events streamed that would be a bonus. Most likely will have to connect to the internet wirelessly.

Basically...

Stream live sports
Connect to internet wirelessly
Small/ compact
Decent video quality (I guess for my case it depends on the stream? Are most stream quality decent?
Playing media from home is not needed at all. I just want something to stream live TV.

Off google I have stumbled on something called the Raspberry PI. I'm very illiterate when it comes to computers but I assume if I get something like that, I just follow their setup guide, install XBMC on it and we're good to go?

Are their any similar devices like the Raspberry PI? Is there anything faster that shares a similar small size? I'd really like it to be pretty fast when switching menus, apps and all that. Delays and waiting while going through menus is something I can't stand. I hope these can have zippy fast interfaces and be a compact size, please tell me I can get both =p and not need a laptop / pc rig.

That's all for now, just want to see my options for these boxes and work from there. Will be browsing this sub forum to see if I stumble on any information that might be applicable.

Thanks, Stephen.

Xeno43 · 2014-01-27, 00:58

Yes the Raspberry Pi will do everything you want. I recommend the most recent version of openelec. You'll need to buy like $10 of accessories as well as the pi, not really that big a deal.

nimanic · 2014-01-27, 01:21

I liked the RAPi, until i wanted to watch hugh fullHD files. But over all it is smooth and working.

Beside the hardware you also need to buy the codec, otherwise you will have a problem watching SD.

calev · 2014-01-27, 01:27

If you want fast and snappy dont get a PI. Its a fun toy but the celeron nuc's are a pretty good deal and are a few hundred times faster. To get a PI to perform well it needs overclocking, usb install, and codecs. just spend around ~200$ and get something that will work well for years to come.

Xeno43 · 2014-01-27, 01:55

I really hate the FUD surround the Raspbery Pi on this forum.

Between me and my immediate family, we own over 10 Raspberry Pi's. Each one is capable of running 1080P H264 encoded files (which is all that is released today, and even if you've been around for a while only 3 of my 600 movies weren't H264). Each one runs the User Interface smoothly, though on fanart mode the fanart can take a second to load.

The Raspberry Pi is automatically overclocked in OpenElec, and if you wish to overclock it more there is literally a text file where you increase the number next to the word overclock. However I have never needed to do this.

And you do not need any codecs, that's just straight up wrong. It can play SD video just fine by using the CPU to decode.

Why the guy above me complains about something he named USB install is beyond me. The OS lives on an SD card, you don't install over USB. And why he says spending an hour to fix up a Raspberry pi which will cost $50 including accessories is not worth it and you should spend $200 on a full system just sounds stupid, to be honest.

Any other questions or FUD just ask.

calev · (This post was last modified: 2014-01-27, 02:07 by calev.)

Most raspberry Pis have sc card corruption when over-clocked to 1gz. Hence the USB install. The USB install also makes loading fan-arts much quicker becouse the sd card reads much slower. I have plenty of bluray rips that are vc1(planet earth), and mpeg 2(terminator 2) that my pi can't play without codecs. My Pi cost more like 85$ after case, power supply, hdmi, sd card, shipping. you can get a celeron up and running with a ir receiver for around 200 now. And it runs all the skins and all the add-ons painlessly. I don’t get why people get so offended when stating an obvious fact like a 700mhz arm processor is noticeably and sometimes painfully slower than any x86 alternative released in the last 5 years. To me that just sounds stupid, to be honest.

Jmhthefirst · 2014-01-27, 05:16

Between me and my immediate family, we sub - par ver 10 Raspberry Pi's. Each one is capable ofNUunning 1080P H264 encoded files (which is all that is released today, and even if you've been around for a while only 3 of my 600 movies weren't H264). Each one runs the User Interface smoothly, though on fanart mode the fanart can take a second to load.

The Raspberry Pi is automatically overclocked in OpenElec, and if you wish to overclock it more there is literally a text file where you increase the number next to the word overclock. However I have

Why the guy above me complains about something he named USB install is beyond me. The OS lives on an SD card, you don't install over USB. And why he says spending an hour to fix up a Raspberry pi which will cost $50 including accessories is not worth it and you should spend $200 on a full system just sounds stupid, to be honest.

Any other questions or FUD just ask.
[/quote]
USB install is the smoothiest, snappyest, and onlyest way to go with a Raspberry Pi if you ask me. And even booting from USB it is still a sub-par performer in the grand scheme of things. NUC or even Ouya might be worth looking into for you.

KrakenT3ch · 2014-01-27, 06:52

I have a RPi and works great if setup the right way. There are also other contenders like the cubox-i. There has been some progress in openelec development for cubox in the past week. So if i were you i would an eye out for that too.

Milhouse · 2014-01-27, 08:09

(2014-01-27, 02:05)calev Wrote: Most raspberry Pis have sc card corruption when over-clocked to 1gz. Hence the USB install.

The cause of SD corruption has been identified and fixed (over a month ago), and is no longer a problem.

(2014-01-27, 02:05)calev Wrote: My Pi cost more like 85$ after case, power supply, hdmi, sd card, shipping.

The price is going to vary depending on what spare parts you happen to have lying around in the spare parts drawer - for many people they may only require a case. Most households will have a spare HDMI cable, phone charger and SD card lying around, and if not they're dirt cheap to buy, online or in pretty much any high-street store (so no shipping!). Of course you can also pay stupid money for HDMI cables and phone chargers, if you're that way inclined.

(2014-01-27, 02:05)calev Wrote: I don’t get why people get so offended when stating an obvious fact like a 700mhz arm processor is noticeably and sometimes painfully slower than any x86 alternative released in the last 5 years. To me that just sounds stupid, to be honest.

I guess coming straight out and referring to the Pi somewhat condescendingly as a "toy" may put some noses out of place, particularly when it clearly does the job very well for a lot of people that do not require (what you no doubt consider to be) a "real" computer. Not to mention your x86 computer will cost several times more than the Pi, usually requires additional RAM and an HDD/SSD, and will suck down more power than a Pi ever will.

It's horses for courses, of course, but the Pi is genuinely "good enough" for a lot of people that just want to watch a few videos. Of course it's not going to compare favourably with a full x86 installation when running certain complex (or badly/inefficiently written) addons, but for a lot of basic XBMC related tasks (including quite a number of well written addons) it's actually surprisingly competitive. And that's all that a lot of people really need to know.

joelbaby · (This post was last modified: 2014-01-27, 15:14 by joelbaby.)

I would buy a Cubox-i instead of a raspberry pi.

For a start there is a $45 model, which is 5x faster than a Pi, and includes a box and IR receiver (which the Pi does not).
There is a $100 model which is better for xbmc.
It is much smaller than a Pi too.

The person who wrote Raspbmc (raspberry pi xbmc) is rewriting raspbmc for the cubox-i.
Also, Openelec, Geexbox, and Yocto XBMC variants are also available (all builds are early versions).

awp0 · 2014-01-27, 19:39

I love the raspi. For anyone with a spare smartphone charger and an SD card and thumb drive laying around, it really is about $45. Case is optional. The other (really big) advantage to buying a raspi over just about any other cheap unit, is that it's standardized and one of the most popular XBMC platforms with thousands of people using it. You won't get the same level of support with any other XBMC machine IMO.

Yeah, you can buy a higher performing NUC for $200. Or why not buy a custom built i7-based HTPC for $500 while you're at it? If you can afford these, then go for it and yes they'll probably be faster. But if you're looking the best value at a low price point then it's really hard to beat the raspi.

And if you have an ounce of "tinkering" interest then you'll probably become addicted to the raspi. I have two raspi's for XBMC, another one powering a sous vide machine, and yet another one permanently configured as a timelapse camera for the Longfellow Bridge here in Boston. A "smart wifi thermostat" project is next. They're wonderful devices.

magister · 2014-01-28, 03:59

I would not use the pi since the sports streams you mention will often send you crashing to the menu due to dead links. Menu on pi is super slow. I used one in my bedroom for months. It was so slow i never updated my library and used the file system. At that point, what is the point of xbmc? Ouya is faster and around the same price once you factor in all the hardware needed for an optimal pi experience. I suggest an ouya for cheap little boxes. The $200 level gets you to the nuc options.

Milhouse · 2014-01-28, 04:21

(2014-01-28, 03:59)magister Wrote: I would not use the pi since the sports streams you mention will often send you crashing to the menu due to dead links. Menu on pi is super slow. I used one in my bedroom for months. It was so slow i never updated my library and used the file system. At that point, what is the point of xbmc? Ouya is faster and around the same price once you factor in all the hardware needed for an optimal pi experience. I suggest an ouya for cheap little boxes. The $200 level gets you to the nuc options.

Dead links are a problem for any platform, not just a Pi!

As for the menus being slow, I guess you haven't tried the latest Pi development builds and are speaking of your experience from months ago? Performance has increased substantially in the last few months, with many bottlenecks in XBMC code having been identified and fixed by the Pi developers (which will also benefit other low powered ARM platforms).

I've got a Pi and a Revo 3700, and the Pi - while running latest Gotham nightly builds - is now almost as quick in the menus as the Revo, the difference in performance is certainly not reflected in the relative prices. As a Revo user I don't have problems with the Pi being "slow", yes it's a bit slower but not so slow that I'd want to lay out another 5 times the price to save a second or two.

Of course if you're running a badly written addon, that will kill a Pi quicker than it will kill x86. A month or so ago someone took a look at the SportsDevil addon which used to be very slow on the Pi, identified the performance bottleneck (a complex regex being executed many times for each link when it was only required to be executed a few times), optimised the code and now SportsDevil on the Pi is really very quick indeed. Unfortunately it's usually badly written addons that get the Pi a bad reputation.

**katsup** · (This post was last modified: 2014-01-28, 04:58 by katsup.)

I have two pis and they work fine for my needs (bedroom & 2nd TV). My main TV has a Shuttle mini pc.

I had issues with menu speed when I first set it up. I installed it on a USB 3.0 flash drive, but it somehow got corrupt and I had to reinstall it. I decided to install the OS on a SanDisk Extreme Pro (95MB/s) and I have no speed issues with the menu anymore.

As far as limitations, there have been some video where it has difficulty playing. Most of which were bluray isos that I just wanted to see if the pi could handle it. An annoying thing is that the CEC buttons for my Panasonic TV remote changed so now the PLAY, STOP, RWD, etc... no longer work. The menu and the buttons I setup manually still work though. I haven't really investigated why they stopped working yet as it is only slightly annoying.

magister · (This post was last modified: 2014-01-28, 05:04 by magister.)

I agree the addons are often the problem. But they crash to the menu and that blasted menu was so slow. I am also glad to hear the pi is faster. I am skeptical but I may check it out again. I still have the pi. Ouya is working out for me right now.

What os are you using for pi? Raspbmc or open elec?

My experience. I have used pi, pivos, 5 year old computer, and ouya. Ouya has been best. Pi was slow. Pivos a little faster, but still slow. Ouya just right. This is the first I am hearing of pi being smooth in the menues.