[JonSnow88]

[quote='yaqh' pid='1765822' dateline='1407167179']
whats the best remote to use with pi, are these any good.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Remote-Control...1291516897

Thats the remote I use, its super light, lots of keys, and battery lasts for around half a year easy! I love it to bits.

If you want to get the best out of the remote you would need to learn to map keys (really easy) to get other functions. I also use a GPIO ir reciever and done away with the USB reciever. But without all that I still recommend it. The keys have good feedback.

I wont bother with a GPIO IR reciever, it has a USB reciever of its own. I have my own reason for wanting one but really get the remote and your good to go and then you'll need to learn how to set the buttons on remote to do what you want, things like context menu (not that hard)

can I ask why you are only limiting yourself to these boards?

By the time you get all the parts (depending on what else you need) your close to the price of say amazon fire tv, or maybe even a NUC.

Theres a guy on this forum who got a Pi with openelec setup with a sdcard. He was having trouble and I mentioned to first do a reinstall and then overclock it and then if its still slow buy the Noobs sdcard. He went out and brought an sdcard and a USB3 stick. I'm pretty sure he didnt shop around either and probably spent quite abit on that.

Reason why I'm saying this is because the Pi is amazing and has amazing playback, in some cases it beats the NUC. BUT tally up on how much each parts going to cost you then compare that to a FTV (if you live in america) or a NUC.

If the difference in cost is small I would get the NUC. It has a build in ir reciever wireless and bluetooth.
great.

The Pi cost me $65 CDN (case, heatsinks, SD card) which is the cheapest option so far and works great. If i go the Chromebox i need to add another 100 bucks which isn't as bad as getting the NCU and then adding RAM etc. The Pi is perfect for the bedroom, little slow but with OC weorks fine. I will probably end up getting the ChromeBox for the family room, just to get DTS-HD and TrueHD

@ Yaqh haven't noticed any shuttering or lag.

[yaqh]

Thats the remote I use, its super light, lots of keys, and battery lasts for around half a year easy! I love it to bits.

If you want to get the best out of the remote you would need to learn to map keys (really easy) to get other functions. I also use a GPIO ir reciever and done away with the USB reciever. But without all that I still recommend it. The keys have good feedback.

I wont bother with a GPIO IR reciever, it has a USB reciever of its own. I have my own reason for wanting one but really get the remote and your good to go and then you'll need to learn how to set the buttons on remote to do what you want, things like context menu (not that hard)

can I ask why you are only limiting yourself to these boards?

By the time you get all the parts (depending on what else you need) your close to the price of say amazon fire tv, or maybe even a NUC.

Theres a guy on this forum who got a Pi with openelec setup with a sdcard. He was having trouble and I mentioned to first do a reinstall and then overclock it and then if its still slow buy the Noobs sdcard. He went out and brought an sdcard and a USB3 stick. I'm pretty sure he didnt shop around either and probably spent quite abit on that.

Reason why I'm saying this is because the Pi is amazing and has amazing playback, in some cases it beats the NUC. BUT tally up on how much each parts going to cost you then compare that to a FTV (if you live in america) or a NUC.

If the difference in cost is small I would get the NUC. It has a build in ir reciever wireless and bluetooth.
great.

The Pi cost me $65 CDN (case, heatsinks, SD card) which is the cheapest option so far and works great. If i go the Chromebox i need to add another 100 bucks which isn't as bad as getting the NCU and then adding RAM etc. The Pi is perfect for the bedroom, little slow but with OC weorks fine. I will probably end up getting the ChromeBox for the family room, just to get DTS-HD and TrueHD

@ Yaqh haven't noticed any shuttering or lag.

The pi+ will probably cost around £50 with remote so I might get that instead of the NUC.
I would like to buy the AFTV but it's not available in the UK.

[yaqh]

ok i done it.ordered the pi+ from cpc with case and noobs card.what are steps to install xbmc when i get it.

[spcano01]

Why not just the odroid boxes?? Built in s. Korea off of Samsung Galaxy specs. Can use Linux or Android oob and they're 40-170 depending on specs.

[noggin]

Android isn't a great fit for those of us in Europe as it doesn't offer frame rate switching - which is pretty important for us as we watch 24, 25/50 and 60Hz sources.

The ODroid U-series models have only limited Linux support for hardware acceleration, and I'm not sure they do framerate switching either (it took them a long time to support 1080/50p output ISTR).

[MediaPi]

Once you get all the parts over (talking about the Odroid) you'll end up in NUC terroritoy and I aint even joking. The shipping and customs (vat and tax) take the price into around £80 (last time I enquired). I heard its a nice board but not worth it IMO. rather get a NUC

[seffles]

I've just moved house and was looking for something like the Pi to use in the spare bedroom, so a colleague gave me his old model B since he doesn't use it any more. It was okay, but I found it far too slow and stuttery (even using a fast USB stick for storage) to be much use.

On a whim, I bought a dual-core Cubox-i for £50, direct from Solid Run. It took two weeks to arrive, half an hour to install Geexbox, and just worked perfectly. I can use the box while it does library updates (which totally killed the Pi), it plays everything I can throw at including 3D blu-ray ISOs, and it even works with my Harmony One remote (setup as a Windows MCE remote) without any tweaking.

I highly recommend them, and I'm considering getting another one. As I said, I was originally planning to put it in the spare room, but I'm currently using it in the living room instead of the HTPC which is now getting relegated to the office to be used as a server instead.

[yaqh]

I've just moved house and was looking for something like the Pi to use in the spare bedroom, so a colleague gave me his old model B since he doesn't use it any more. It was okay, but I found it far too slow and stuttery (even using a fast USB stick for storage) to be much use.

On a whim, I bought a dual-core Cubox-i for £50, direct from Solid Run. It took two weeks to arrive, half an hour to install Geexbox, and just worked perfectly. I can use the box while it does library updates (which totally killed the Pi), it plays everything I can throw at including 3D blu-ray ISOs, and it even works with my Harmony One remote (setup as a Windows MCE remote) without any tweaking.

I highly recommend them, and I'm considering getting another one. As I said, I was originally planning to put it in the spare room, but I'm currently using it in the living room instead of the HTPC which is now getting relegated to the office to be used as a server instead.

Oh, should I cancel my pi order and get the cubox-i, how much did you pay in total? which model did you order and what options did you add?

[seffles]

Oh, should I cancel my pi order and get the cubox-i, how much did you pay in total?

Just looking back over my emails, it seems I paid £69.85 ($115.99), not the £50 I said earlier, sorry. I used a discount voucher to get about $5 off (I think it's still valid: "cubox-i-discount-3627").

I bought a micro SD card for about £6, but it arrived with one already in the slot (and pre-loaded with Android). I also replaced the power supply that came with it as it had a two-pin European plug and didn't like having to use an adaptor, but I had a compatible one lying around from an old USB hub.

If there's anything else you want to know about it, let me know.

[black_eagle]

My Pi sings along quite happily at 1.1Ghz - I guess it boils down to how you use stuff. I don't scrape with it, it's just an extender for XBMC into my kitchen. I don't spend much time in the menus either. I usually know what I want to watch/listen to, so the slight sluggishness in finding it I can happily put up with (it's lifting everything from the server over wifi so I don't expect it to be blazingly fast). Playback itself though is absolutely spot on. My view is for the price and the size, you really can't go wrong.

I paid £59 for Pi model B, 8Gb card, PSU, Case, wifi dongle and remote. Delivery was free and next day.

[seffles]

Oh, should I cancel my pi order and get the cubox-i, how much did you pay in total? which model did you order and what options did you add?

Sorry, just realised you asked about the model and options. It's the i2-EX without the optional bluetooth and wifi.

[yaqh]

My Pi sings along quite happily at 1.1Ghz - I guess it boils down to how you use stuff. I don't scrape with it, it's just an extender for XBMC into my kitchen. I don't spend much time in the menus either. I usually know what I want to watch/listen to, so the slight sluggishness in finding it I can happily put up with (it's lifting everything from the server over wifi so I don't expect it to be blazingly fast). Playback itself though is absolutely spot on. My view is for the price and the size, you really can't go wrong.

I paid £59 for Pi model B, 8Gb card, PSU, Case, wifi dongle and remote. Delivery was free and next day.

great, where did you order yours from and what remote did you order? Mine comes with noobs card, what will i need to do when I get it, How do I install XBMC and which version. Is openelec better?

[MediaPi]

seffles how much was the board and how much did you end up paying (including tax vat customs conversion....) they dont supply a UK plug either so thats another £5+

It all starts adding up, then ask yourself why? you might as well pay a slight few bob over the cubox to get NUC n2820.

dont bother with the cubox, seriously I rather get a Pi and then a NUC, nothing in between.

plus delivery time has gone up 3-4weeks

I'm with Black eagle. I've got my Pi at 1.1ghz and its super. I've also modified my remote so with one click of button I go to where I want.

[yaqh]

seffles how much was the board and how much did you end up paying (including tax vat customs conversion....) they dont supply a UK plug either so thats another £5+

It all starts adding up, then ask yourself why? you might as well pay a slight few bob over the cubox to get NUC n2820.

dont bother with the cubox, seriously I rather get a Pi and then a NUC, nothing in between.

plus delivery time has gone up 3-4weeks

I'm with Black eagle. I've got my Pi at 1.1ghz and its super. I've also modified my remote so with one click of button I go to where I want.

I have ordered the b+ with noobs card, Can I get mine to 1.1gz and is it safe to do without heatsink? I am also looking for decent simple remote.

[seffles]

seffles how much was the board and how much did you end up paying (including tax vat customs conversion....) they dont supply a UK plug either so thats another £5+

It all starts adding up, then ask yourself why? you might as well pay a slight few bob over the cubox to get NUC n2820.

dont bother with the cubox, seriously I rather get a Pi and then a NUC, nothing in between.

plus delivery time has gone up 3-4weeks

I'm with Black eagle. I've got my Pi at 1.1ghz and its super. I've also modified my remote so with one click of button I go to where I want.

It was £69.85 including shipping, no additional costs (customs, etc). I don't know what their shipping times are like now, but I expected mine to take 6-8 weeks but it took 14 days to arrive (ordered 10th July, arrived 24th July). The supplied Euro plug works, but needs a two-pin to three-pin adaptor, or a replacement supply. It has no wifi, and I'm using a remote that I already had, so factor that in to your additional costs.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the Pi is a terrible device or that the Cubox-i is infinitely better. But for me, I was unhappy with the Pi, even when overclocked and using a USB3 stick. I'm very pleased with the Cubox though, I think you can tell.