Thinking about a Rasberry Pi Media Center

[jmacavali]

Any rasberry pi users out there? I'm thinking real hard about getting one and running a media center on it. If you do this let me know, as I have some questions.

1. What OS did you load/would you recommend?

2. How do you load your movies? Via USB Hard Drive?

3. Does it do AirPlay to stream from an iPad?

4. Are there any OS'es that allow Netflix to play?

5. Is it capable of streaming websites (like watchespn)?


My current media center is getting old and needs replaced. I have another computer that would be great for it, but it's our main computer and I don't like having it hooked up to our tv when we want to use it to get work done. I thought this would be a real cheap alternative.

 

[iPwn]

1. What OS did you load/would you recommend?

RaspBMC

2. How do you load your movies? Via USB Hard Drive?

I believe you have to store them on USB drive (size constraints).

3. Does it do AirPlay to stream from an iPad?

Not natively, but there is a way to do so.

EDIT: Looks like the new version of RaspBMC supports AirPlay by default.

4. Are there any OS'es that allow Netflix to play?

Not currently. Linux will not run Netflix atm without some serious hacks and unstable changes.

5. Is it capable of streaming websites (like watchespn)?

See here.

 

[particleman]

I use Xbian I love it works great.
All my movies are stored on a powered external 2tb drive.
Xbian supports airplay but i know nothing about it.
yes you can stream from websites like youtube,onechannel,projectfreetv there are a ton of plugins. I watch all I want all day with just a few plugins. I use onechannel,youtube,icefilms,projectfreetv,giddyup network.
I have my pi set to turbo mode which is 1000mhz with / stored on usb stick to prevent sd corruption. but I also have heat sinks and a fan. I have a samsung led tv which the remote worked out of the box on the pi with Xbian. It also plays 1080p without any issues. A good site to learn about xbmc plugins is xbmchub.com.

 

[jmacavali]

Thanks guys. I'm going to have to make time to do this now I guess.

 

[BK_123]

What are the current specs of your media center?

 

[jmacavali]

Right now it's just an old desktop. Single-core, one gig of ram. It's getting replaced, but I was just going to do this. Turns out my wife said no, so I'm just going to use our main computer and hook it up instead.

 

[Mossiac]

Well the main advantages of a raspberry pi are:

It is small enough to be hidden behind the tv

Doesn't use much power

Don't have to think about cooling it unless you are going to overclock it.

Very cheap media server.

Mossiac