Raspberry Pi

[Sap1ent]

There's been a lot of buzz lately about this little creature, does anyone have one on order?

I'm expecting mine to come at the start of June and looking forward to trying to get it to run xbmc so I can stream media directly to it.

I've currently got a WHS 2011 box sat in the spare room with all my films, TV and music on which I currently stream to an ACER emachine in the main living area, but it would be excellent if I could go even smaller form factor and stream to a PI which I can literally mount behind the TV somewhere.

I'm a little concerned that it's not got gigabit ethernet, especially when I went to the trouble of putting a gigabit switch in the loft and fed cat5 down to every room, but still, such is life.

[DigitalConvert]

Wow, that's one of the most geeky, techno speak posts i've ever seen !!! what's it all about !!?

[chesterfieldchris]

I also run xbmc, and have gigabit wired several parts of the home. The R-Pi intreagues me too and running xbmc on linux should in theory be possible - but 1080p at a high bitrate could be an issue on a 10/100 port. That said, I have not run into issues on an xtreamer that only has a 10/100 port.

Depends on the buffering and codec I guess. You could have parts of a 1080p media that exceeds the 11 or so Mb/s that the 10/100 can handle, but if its only bursts and the device/software can buffer it then it may work well enough.

At £20 or so for a device its not too much down the pan if it doesnt work as well as an emachine (which I also use to feed the living room tv).

Im using a QNAP array store for the media configured raid 5 as the store.

Have you configured your xbmc to store its database on the Home Server rather than locally? That would be a must if you intend to use the R-Pi for xbmc I think. It also means you can relocate the emachine to another location and use it without conflict on the database.

I especially like using the feature of a shared database whereby you can start watching something on the living room tv, stop it, retire to the bedroom and start the media again, and as the device uses the same database you can pick up where you left off on the living room tv.

[Sap1ent]

I haven't quite got to the point of using a shared database yet as I still need a few more hard drives for my server and plan to utilise one of those. I've read about how to do it though and it seems very straightforward.

I've been looking at the QNAP boxes lately, they look fantastic. I just knocked together my server out of a few old bits of kit i'd got around and I wanted to use it as a webserver and printserver too, but from reading up it looks like those QNAP boxes can do a lot of those things now too and they appear to be a lot more economical, they aren't cheap in the first place mind you.

You seem like my kind of geek Chris! Do you lurk on any other geeky forums?

[fbnts]

I am still on the waiting list to get my Pi

I have a couple of different things I want to try with it. I use a system called MythTV in the house with a backend server with several Freeview tuners which records all our TV programs and also stores all my DVD rips and streams to front ends in the bedrooms and living room.

I shall be trying out MythTV on the Pi but I don't think it will be quite up to the job but we'll see.

1080p should be fine over 10/100 network, you'll be looking around 8-12Mb/sec for a 1080p24 video so shouldn't be a problem unless your streaming to multiple units at the same time.

[chesterfieldchris]

I don't visit any techie/geeky forums unless looking for an answer to a problem that google cany cough up

I currently run one Gigabit network with 6TB QNAP just for media store and stream to multiple locations either via XBMC or using standard windows PC's & laptops - though at the moment I have no call to stream simultaneously. In the future with a little one now in the household, multiple streaming will certainly be on the cards.

I also run a seperate Gigabit network with another 3TB QNAP and small server as an IP CCTV system.

I do like my toys/gadgets/cars and anything else that us boys never grow tired of She who must be obeyed has the patience of a saint

With the new addition to the family, I can start all over again with scaelextic, train sets and lego

[fbnts]

In the future with a little one now in the household, multiple streaming will certainly be on the cards.

Well if your server is gigabit then there will certainly be no problem streaming out to multiple 10/100 clients, you may start to run into issues with HDD access speeds but I am running at most 4 clients streaming saved TV programs across a 10/100 lan without issue (granted its just standard definition).

I also run a seperate Gigabit network with another 3TB QNAP and small server as an IP CCTV system.

What software do you use? I did look at replacing our CCTV system at work with an IP based system but decided against it as the costs of replacing 26 cameras and 2 DVRs was quite high! I have played with ZoneMinder on Linux which was quite impressive.

[chesterfieldchris]

I went for Avigilon. Not the cheapest software solution for a domestic installation, but its very user friendly which counts for a lot. Cameras are Avigilon too, but the system is compatible with quite a lot of brands and models of camera. Changing 26 caeras for IP will be costly, but it depends on what resolution you need in order to cover each area effectively. A multi MP IP camera can cover the same area as multiple D1 analogue cameras at the same time, but it depends on what needs to be covered. If each of the 26 is covering a different area that cant be covere by a reduced number of analogue cameras, then it could get very expensive very quickly. eek.

[riksworld]

My py has been on order for over 2 weeks now, should be here next week, been following the device for some years now, its usually a good topic at our place of work, were all engineers so we have been watching this with great interest.

Some of our guys have allready mounted a couple inside of there Tv`s with great feedback, even better if you have an android device or Apple, install XBMC Remote and your laughing.

My home network is now ready with 3 gigbyte switches and a ethernet port in every room and 20TB of NAS storage to use with my Server 2008 cant wait.

Once they have arrive, maybe we can compare notes on how the device performs.

[chesterfieldchris]

Sadly our home is solid walls throughout, so short of chanelling the walls, we have no chance of getting ports to every room I would like. As we decorate individual rooms, I am adding the ports however - but its slow progress

20TB - crikey - I thought I stored a lot of stuff, but I dont think im anywhere near running short on 6TB yet