O2 Joggler Forum

Cheers for that, you are right about the PI and power, mine works fine attached to the usb port of a router (Bt hh3) but it had been gathering dust as my acer revo is doing it's openelec job fine at the moment.

Somebody kindly gave us a flat panel LCD TV with integrated DVD player just before Christmas. The intention was to have it in the kitchen but I couldn't get a signal unless the aerial was in a very high (and unsightly) position. The TV also spoiled the view out to the garden where it was positioned. Sadly it went back in the box.

Yesterday I had a brainwave (possibly my first); I checked out the connections on the TV and noticed the VGA and HDMI inputs. I've now hooked up the TV to my PC as the default monitor (great picture and widescreen) and I'll soon be ordering a Raspberry Pi to run XBMC. With the TVCatchup addon I'll be able to watch live TV without the unsightly aerial. I'll let you all know how I get on.

The plan for my Pi is to use it as a DVD player. Problem is, playback of .iso image files has been disabled in omxplayer. It used to work, but appears to have been shut off by the author because it's not feature complete; it identifies the video and audio correctly and used to work reasonably well on XBMC via Raspbmc, but recent builds just land you with a black screen.

So I guess I'll have to do something else with it until that's fixed!

Roobarb, didn't try to play DVD with RPI, but... did you try with mplayer?

ilovemyjoggler wrote:So, IF I decided to get one of these purely to watch xbmc on my internet enabled telly, what exactly would I need to get and what accompanying bits would it require? It's just an idea in it's infancy at the moment (cost and technical ability being determining factors) but it could be something that goes on my birthday wishlist! (just out of curiosity is it pi as in pee or pi as in pie?). Thanks.

No-one got back to me on this - I'm taking it as the forum's polite way of saying 'do your own research!' - which I totally get as I've been a right royal pain in the rear from the minute I joined!

gegs wrote:I've now hooked up the TV to my PC as the default monitor (great picture and widescreen) and I'll soon be ordering a Raspberry Pi to run XBMC. With the TVCatchup addon I'll be able to watch live TV without the unsightly aerial. I'll let you all know how I get on.

Gegs, what am I missing here? If the tv is hooked up to the pc and you can get xbmc on the pc, why the need for a raspberry pi as you can route the stuff from pc to tv (as we've done for ice hockey in the past)? I'm not being cheeky but really interested in what benefit there is going through the pi. I'm watching a lot of xbmc on my (old!) laptop at the moment - picture's a bit crappy but as I'm moving around the house doing other stuff at the same time and bringing the laptop with me, it suits my needs but picture quality wouldn't be so hot for films. I've not got round to hooking laptop to tv to watch xbmc... hence my original enquiry above.

I missed your post ilmj
I have xbmc running on a nettop acer revo mini pc full time in my living room with all my family photos /ripped dvds and ripped music.
From this set up my kitchen joggler running xbmc can play any of my media as it sees the xbmc in the living room.
Likewise a bedroom tv with a 25 pound raspberry PI plus openelec or rasbbmc booting of an sd card will launch straight in to xbmc with all its goodness
You will however need an Ethernet cable or powerline adapters to network it.
And a remote or smartphone app to control it.
I think geggs or dwl uses a joggler as a server instead of the revo I use.
You could of course use another PI.
Happy tinkering

Leonardo wrote:Roobarb, didn't try to play DVD with RPI, but... did you try with mplayer?

Does mplayer work with the hardware acceleration of the Pi? I thought for some reason that it didn't.. If it does, I'm back in the game!

I read somewhere that with the updated memory and newest XBMC it does better and actually will stream 1080 content. 720 would work for me though on the Kitchen LCD TV.

I really want to test this though before using it. My plans here were to mount the Pi behind a vesa mounted kitchen LCD which is really only about 1.5" from the wall.

roobarb! wrote: Does mplayer work with the hardware acceleration of the Pi? I thought for some reason that it didn't.. If it does, I'm back in the game!

Sincerely I don't know but... since the time I used Slackware Linux (more than 15 years ago) there was a lot of lazy people who didn't want to compile themselves mplayer (no package manager in Slackware, if you want something you have to compile it!).
The best way to use mplayer is to compile it on YOUR pc, this is the only way to optimize it and use all the resources of your hardware. Said that, we have a repository with all binaries compiled for RPI, so why not? I think the binaries are not just crosscompiled to meet processor resources, but I think (I hope) are done expecially for RPI hardware!
(Sorry for my English I hope I was able to explain my idea!!)

@Leonardo - I think your English is pretty good.

Your post takes me back to the good old days of compiling software for linux. I used SuSE linux from 1999 onwards, which had an RPM package manager but they didn't keep the most modern versions of most packages in their repositories; if you wanted the most up-to-date Gimp it was necessary to compile it. It was hard work for a newbie but very educational.

Back on topic - for all things regarding video playback and hardware acceleration on the Raspberry Pi, you'd be best to use OpenELEC or RaspBMC. I believe they have in-built support for hardware video acceleration on the Pi.

ilovemyjoggler wrote:

ilovemyjoggler wrote:

gegs wrote:I've now hooked up the TV to my PC as the default monitor (great picture and widescreen) and I'll soon be ordering a Raspberry Pi to run XBMC. With the TVCatchup addon I'll be able to watch live TV without the unsightly aerial. I'll let you all know how I get on.

Gegs, what am I missing here? If the tv is hooked up to the pc and you can get xbmc on the pc, why the need for a raspberry pi as you can route the stuff from pc to tv (as we've done for ice hockey in the past)? I'm not being cheeky but really interested in what benefit there is going through the pi. I'm watching a lot of xbmc on my (old!) laptop at the moment - picture's a bit crappy but as I'm moving around the house doing other stuff at the same time and bringing the laptop with me, it suits my needs but picture quality wouldn't be so hot for films. I've not got round to hooking laptop to tv to watch xbmc... hence my original enquiry above.

Leaving aside the fact that my PC is a pile of c*ap, power consumption is a determining factor. The Raspberry Pi consumes around 3.5W - compare that with computer PSU units that can guzzle up several hundred watts of juice.

As for your earlier question about pronunciation, I think the clue is connected to the first word; it's Raspberry Pi (as in 'pie'). Apple, Apricot and Blackberry were already taken

hawsey wrote:I missed your post ilmj

Being a bit slow on the uptake I was wondering who ilmj is....then I realised it was ME! I like it. In the unlikely event that I join another forum I'll definitely choose something short and snappy

hawsey wrote: Likewise a bedroom tv with a 25 pound raspberry PI plus openelec or rasbbmc booting of an sd card will launch straight in to xbmc with all its goodness
You will however need an Ethernet cable or powerline adapters to network it.
And a remote or smartphone app to control it.

I'm seriously considering one - although there seem to be different types. Need more research on the associated cabling and bits. As I have no idea what I'm doing, I think some kind of pre-prepared kit might be more sensible (no doubt more expensive). Then I'll need to figure out what to do with it... Thank you!

Just out of curiosity, did you manage to get yourself a working joggler - you're posting again so I assume you're up and running?

gegs wrote:Leaving aside the fact that my PC is a pile of c*ap, power consumption is a determining factor. The Raspberry Pi consumes around 3.5W - compare that with computer PSU units that can guzzle up several hundred watts of juice.

Ahh, understood.
Is the pi fast?

gegs wrote:As for your earlier question about pronunciation, I think the clue is connected to the first word; it's Raspberry Pi (as in 'pie'). Apple, Apricot and Blackberry were already taken

Are you sure? That's a shame as my incredibly juvenile sense of humour much prefers pee!

It's definitely Pi, as in the mathematical constant.

The Pi isn't necessarily hugely fast but it supports video up to 1080 with graphic acceleration (if you have the correct driver installed, which I believe OpenELEC and RaspBMC have). Using a dedicated media centre distro also means that any resources are dedicated solely to that task - there shouldn't be too many rogue background processes gumming up the works.

think I'll stick with ilmj he he
You will be fine with a PI and you won't need any pre prepared stuff .
The files are image files like the joggler ones and you just write them to a sd card using the same software and method we use for the Joggler stuff
Apart from that you need an HDMI cable from the pound shop /man drawer and to power it a micro sd cable / transformer the sort that charges most phones these days
I power mine from the usb port on my router.

ilmj,

Actually wife's nicknamed me just "p"/"pee" mainly based on birthday cards et all now for quit a few years.

Many years ago (like over 50) recalled some issues that turned my name into "pee in the air"; which was probably easier to say at the time.

Here are pictures of the LCD in the kitchen nook that would be a PI candidate. The TV is mounted on a VESA plate. That said behind it and in the wall is a double gang box with one side providing the 120VAC for the TV and the other side being a 6 port wall plate with analog antenna and cat5X which would serve the PI. Only thing I would need would be to figure out the power for the PI and might just utilized a POE power splitter as it is small and would most likely fit fine into place.

I have rigged the kitchen; (here no man's land except for the parrot (she)); for my wife such that she can watch her recorded this and that show as she moves to the various sections of the kitchen (rooms?).

hawsey wrote: ...man drawer

pete_c wrote:ilmj,

Actually wife's nicknamed me just "p"/"pee" mainly based on birthday cards et all now for quit a few years.

Many years ago (like over 50) recalled some issues that turned my name into "pee in the air"; which was probably easier to say at the time.

Maybe one day I'll grow up and not find this very amusing...

Gegs and hawsey, thanks for your replies. I'm feeling inspired and this will defo be my next project but not until I raise some funds.

ilovemyjoggler wrote:

hawsey wrote:I missed your post ilmj

Being a bit slow on the uptake I was wondering who ilmj is....then I realised it was ME! I like it. In the unlikely event that I join another forum I'll definitely choose something short and snappy

How about:

That abbreviation makes me think "I love Michael Jackson"

Have to agree with BuZz - it does suggest Michael Jackson - and I don't love him (no offence to any of his fans!). Funny, but as an alphabetic abbreviation I don't get the same association.

Gegs, thanks for making me laugh tho (and I do like it!).

ilovemyjoggler wrote:

Have to agree with BuZz - it does suggest Michael Jackson - and I don't love him (no offence to any of his fans!). Funny, but as an alphabetic abbreviation I don't get the same association.

Gegs, thanks for making me laugh tho (and I do like it!).

Is that the late Michael Jackson, world-renowned beer and whisky expert?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson_(writer)