[xbmcisbest]

Thanks again for your help. I think this is probably too technical for me as I'm struggling to follow. However it seems like the Pi is capable for most types of audio.

[xbmcisbest]

Ideally I am planning on using a lot of the XBMC plugins as well which I'm not sure how the Raspberry Pi would handle those?

Thanks

[popcornmix]

Ideally I am planning on using a lot of the XBMC plugins as well which I'm not sure how the Raspberry Pi would handle those?

The add-ons are written in python which is a slow language, so these can be slow on the Pi.
Well written add-ons like iPlayer and Bromix' Youtube do perform well.
I can't guarantee that all add-ons will be fast.

I'm afraid that is where you may have to make a decision about how important this is and how much money you want to spend.
A NUC may be the best performing hardware, but you'll need to pay more.

[trogggy]

Does it have to be new hardware?
I just bought 2 revo 3610s from fleabay - £50 each, add a remote and you have the possibility of xbmc on windows / linux / openelec*. I'd choose one of those over any android box in a heartbeat.
An old pc re-purposed with a cheap graphics card can come in at well under £50 and do the same thing.


*Yes, I know what the 'l' in OpenElec stands for.

[popcornmix]

An old pc re-purposed with a cheap graphics card can come in at well under £50 and do the same thing.

But you may end up spending > £50 per year in increased electricity costs....

[trogggy]

But you may end up spending > £50 per year in increased electricity costs....

My microserver doesn't use that in a year running 24/7. So yes, if you don't switch it off.
Obviously for running costs a Pi (A or B+) wins out easily.

[nickr]

As far as I'm concerned, the low cost options are, from cheap to affordable:
-Raspberry Pi: apart from the price, it doesn't have many plusses, navigating the interface is simply slow, as is starting playback. If that doesn't bother you, go for it
-Android box: personally, I prefer the FireTV to others, as it has an ok remote and doesn't look too bad. Downsides are that it takes a bit more "hacking" to get working right (boot to xbmc, etc). The only thing that keeps me from using it as my main box is that you cannot adjust the audio volume, so you'll need a tv remote just for that.
-Chromebox: some nice options. Has the same drawback as the NUC, you need a remote with it. Most chromeboxes do not have have an IR receiver built in
-NUC: the 2820 works fine for most people, apart from a few (in my opinion very minor niggles). It is my current player. Only issue I have so far is with the remote, but that's because I don't have an RC6 one yet (I dislike most of them)

Anything bigger/more expensive is to fill a specific desire (do you need 3D, high bit audio, whatnot), so if you have specific wishes, start from that. The four options here don't use much electricity and work great for "average" (whatever that means really) use, so pick your pricepoint as low as you can without running into problem areas you actually care about.

Oh yeah, the Raspberry Pi and Chromeboxes run openelec or full linux, FireTV only runs Android, so limits you somewhat. The NUC can do openelec, linux or windows. FYI.

2820 will do both HD audio and 3d (at least in the formats xbmc works with)

[DankNasty]

I recently got the pi and im loving it for xbmc i would definately recommend overclocking it and using a usb 3.0 storage then it's great for xbmc on open elec. I run all my video addons smooth. Should cost less than what you posted price wise to get going. Definately make sure you get a good power supply though.

[voip-ninja]

So the Pi would support both?

Thanks

If you play a THD track with the PI you are just going to get 2 channel stereo. This is not a big deal if you're just hooking up to a TV. If hooking up to a nice multi-channel system it's kind of annoying. Another option if you are an el-cheap-skate is to convert your THD audio tracks to FLAC, which PI should probably handle without issue.

What it boils down to is how important HD audio is to you, PI does not support it, you would need to go to a NUC (which honestly is not very expensive given the performance and built in IR, but these things are relative).

[noggin]

The Pi does better than most ARM platforms with HD Audio though. It bitstreams the DTS / Dolby Core or fall-back tracks, and unlike most other platforms it will do multichannel PCM (so as you voip-ninja says if you can decode on a PC you can get lossless HD audio quality on a Pi via that route)

[voip-ninja]

Does PI now handle full BD bitrate on both h264 and VC1 without dropping frames?

[xbmcisbest]

If I was to get a Pi what is the best route to go down with distributions/OS's?

Thanks

[nickr]

Openelec seems very popular. Raspbmc is also good. Try them both.

[xbmcisbest]

Thanks for the response. I expected those to be given as answers. Ideally I would like the one that performs the best for XBMC, so things like speed etc.

[kdnoel]

Sorry to rain on the pi parade but I'd recommend a used Boxee Box. Intel based htpc and plays most everything thrown at it. Use the hack from boxeed.in and 13.1 XBMC from there as well.
Intel based Linux os is hard to beat.