[mythtvnz] Raspberry Pi as a multimedia frontend: first impressions.

[Jean-Francois Pirus]

> On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 2:41 PM, jfp <jfpn at clearfield.com> wrote:
> >
> > Jut got myself a Raspberry Pi (Model B) and just tried it as a Multimedia Player running XBMC.
> >
> > The good: It will play Mythtv Freeview DVB-T HD recordings (As well as standard MP4/MKV/AVI's). I've tried TV3 and TV2 recordings, that was quite impressive.
> >
> > The bad:
> > - The interface is a bit sluggish (to be expected)
> > - While it plays Mythtv recordings it only does so over NFS, using SMB/(Windows shares) it shows something like a frame a second. Apparently SMB is very expensive CPU wise compared to NFS.
> >
> > The really bad:
> > - Starting playback for HD content takes about 30 seconds.
> > - NFS is a bit flaky currently.
> >
> > It's early days, but it looks promising.
> >
> > This is using the Openelec distro, you copy it to the SD card and it just works.
> > I also tried the Raspbmc distro but it's harder to install and seems to freeze fairly often.
> 
> Have you tried the mythbox addon?

It froze on a black screen, so no go right now.

Also tried the myth:// source path and I got a listing of the files, but could not play them.

I am playing the Mythtv recordings of the nfs share. (But I rename the files so it's actually useable)
 
> What is it like on material where there is no hardware acceleration
> support (eg xvid, mpeg2)?

It works fine with
MPEG-4 ASP aka Divx/Xvid
MPEG-4 AVC aka MPEG4 ie: Freeview etc

Fails on: (usually plays the sound but crashes when you stop it)
MPEG1
MPEG2
Wmv (recent one)

-- 
Jean-Francois Pirus | Technical Manager
francois at clearfield.com | Mob +64 21 640 779 | DDI +64 9 282 3401

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