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

[Paul Kendall]

On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 9:07 PM, Jean-Francois Pirus <jfpn at clearfield.com> wrote:
>> 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)
>

I have a build of XBMC with the opdenkamp PVR changes and the TSP mythtv
patches and the XBMC-RBP branch all merged together and packaged as a
replacement for the build in raspbmc.

You can install that then extract my build and it works ok.

http://www.raspbmc.com/
http://forum.stmlabs.com/archive/index.php?thread-694.html

Cheers
Paul