[jimwalsh]

I have just installed raspbmc on my raspberry pi which arrived this morning.

I am now watching a couple of blu-ray rips over the network which are playing in glorious 1080p with full surround sound...

have to say for £25 and the cost of a sd card you cannot go wrong!

[walleee]

Hmm, im having a slight bit of trouble streaming some of my higher quality stuff, and some stuff on a usb drive is simply not playing (well, it shows as playing with a timeline counting, but no video or audio, just black screen)

Nonetheless, tvcatchup is available (im having one or two probs with that also!), iPlayer, 4od, demand 5,

so it's turning out to be a really nice (and most importantly for me silent) media unit for me, xbmc is remarkably easy to use, infact I regret not moving over from mediabrowser /MC7 sooner. I'm in teh process of moving all my media from the HTPC onto my NAS to be played through the RPi... got my eye on one of these to stick under the TV and try and make it look a bit tidier also...

eBay - The UK's Online Marketplace

[robbo100]

I tried RASPBMC last night for the first time and I managed to get the menus working, but the video was blank and there was no sound. More fiddling to be done, but I was very impressed with it's responsiveness to inputs on the menu.

I want to put one in my car running XMBC!

Rather than having a box for the Pi, why don't you just velcro it to the back of the TV so there is nothing visible?

[tredman]

Originally Posted by robbo100

I tried RASPBMC last night for the first time and I managed to get the menus working, but the video was blank and there was no sound. More fiddling to be done, but I was very impressed with it's responsiveness to inputs on the menu.

I want to put one in my car running XMBC!

Rather than having a box for the Pi, why don't you just velcro it to the back of the TV so there is nothing visible?

Thats a bit odd, it just worked out of the box for me.

did you change anything in the advancedsettings file?

[walleee]

I've not changed any settings other than those availble through menus, and no changes have helped yet, there will likely be another build available soon which will hopefully sort out my playback problems.

As as far as why I don't just velcro it to the back of my TV, I want to have it accesable for the mean time, and the cover i've linked to will fit in well with the rest of my AV set-up

[Grangey.]

I cant even get the damn thing to boot yet : or even display any picture for that matter

but hopefully im just having an off day and il be bang on it tomorrow

[jdewinnaar]

I've now tried both raspbmc and openelec..

My thoughts:

Raspbmc, while being the more fluent of the 2 is somewhat lacking in functionality. The UI is quick, but it playback need some more work! Playing a 1080p mkv with 5.1 audio makes the display turn black on stutter in and out,

As with openelec, if your connection directly to the TV, go to system, settings, audio and untick the both "reciever" options and the audio will work!

Openelec is slower, but playback is flawless and even my oem remote works a treat!

One little sad point in both, no option to mux 5.1 audio to just stereo..

[iceman1207]

where can i get a raspberry pi without having to pre order or wait on a list before its dispatched?

[jimwalsh]

ebay

[jammyb2004]

Just waiting on my SD card.

[Grangey.]

Think my SD card isnt compatible now, I just cant get the thing to boot and only get the power LED light up... ugh.. il have to order another of those then!

[jimwalsh]

have you tried formatting it with the SDformatter tool? https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_3/

and using Win32DiskImager to put the image on it?

that worked for me...

[Grangey.]

yep tried that and still absolutley nothing.. no signs of life.

Thats the slightly annoying thing about having something so small and cool- no noise means you cant tell if anythings actually working lol

[robbo100]

What you described will happen of the software on the memory card is un-bootable. Try another image and see how you get on.

[walleee]

still no joy grangey? have you tried debian or anything else yet?

[jdewinnaar]

Originally Posted by walleee

still no joy grangey? have you tried debian or anything else yet?

Some SD cards are really not compatable, try getting Sandisk, most of them work a treat!

[Sgt Siff]

I'm really looking forward to this being a stable release.

Grangey, i'm also having problems getting it to boot, despite previously having Debian running stable.

The SD card I'm currently using is a no name class 4 micro SD but I have ordered a class 10 8gb Samsung SD card. Ill let you know if it makes any difference.

jimwalsh - have you tried overclocking yet?

[jimwalsh]

The raspbmc install sets the clock to 800mhz which is a very small overclock but seems stable enough

[Grangey.]

Yeah just tried debian rather than raspmc and still appears dead.

Im using a Sandisk class4 jobby but it just doesnt appear to work. SGT Siff please do let me know how you get on with it as I hope I havnt got a faulty board or something!

[tredman]

Originally Posted by Grangey.

Yeah just tried debian rather than raspmc and still appears dead.

Im using a Sandisk class4 jobby but it just doesnt appear to work. SGT Siff please do let me know how you get on with it as I hope I havnt got a faulty board or something!

How are putting the image on the card?

[Grangey.]

Originally Posted by tredman

How are putting the image on the card?

using the recommended program on the raspberry pi site, win32disk thing

[tredman]

Originally Posted by Grangey.

using the recommended program on the raspberry pi site, win32disk thing

Hmm, worked first time for me when I tried that. Have a look on e-Linux to see if there's any probs with your card.

- just a thought, you are ejecting the card after its been written?

[Grangey.]

Originally Posted by tredman

- just a thought, you are ejecting the card after its been written?

....yeah.. after using the "safely remove" option of corse...?

[tredman]

Originally Posted by Grangey.

....yeah.. after using the "safely remove" option of corse...?

Meh, weird then.

If you've got a Linux box anywhere you could use 'dd' - much more reliable than using the windows thing.

[jdewinnaar]

Try this..

Insert your SD card in your reader, launch win32 disc imager, select this downloaded image after you've extracted it and choose "write"...

That should do it, if it doesnt, the problem lies with your SD card

[robbo100]

I have tried again with RaspBMC RC2 and things seem to be much better. I can still only play some video formats, but it is pretty impressive!

[tredman]

Originally Posted by robbo100

I have tried again with RaspBMC RC2 and things seem to be much better. I can still only play some video formats, but it is pretty impressive!

What can't you play? Everything I've tried plays well, apart from recorded live tv - as the pi doesn't have hardware decoding for mpeg2

[robbo100]

Originally Posted by tredman

What can't you play? Everything I've tried plays well, apart from recorded live tv - as the pi doesn't have hardware decoding for mpeg2

Mpeg2 is the problem, so that explains it! The problem is, that most of my video content is in this format :-)

[tredman]

Originally Posted by robbo100

Mpeg2 is the problem, so that explains it! The problem is, that most of my video content is in this format :-)

Re-encode, if you have a few months to spare? Mpeg2 is not very good for hd, and sd should play I think (not sure about interlaced content tho)

Whenever I rip I always bash it trough handbrake as a matter of course, but I don't record live tv, so its not much of a ball ache

[robbo100]

I am only playing with it as a mediacentre, so I am not going to transcode it all. My video is SD and it plays the audio but the video don't even show a blank screen (just plays as if it were an MP3 playing in the background of the menu).

I am finding a couple of issues so far. Basically it is all fine with the first song/video, but after that, the media doesn't play correctly unless you re-boot. It is only a beta though, so that is understandable!

Robbo100