Raspbmc - Raspbery Pi Media Centre

[db]

i was gonna get me sen an apple tv because, let's face it, it's hard to resist when they're less than a ton.. and before all the apple "haters" get involved - i already have an imac and and ipad, and the missus is getting an iphone, so all my media is already in itunes, hence why the apple tv seems attractive.. i know itunes is an absolute dog on PC, but it works a treat on the mac and is easily my favourite media library (although the newest version is a bit of a pain in the arse, but that's for a different thread).. so yeah - a nice little box for £99, which would stream all my shiz with a nice, shiny apply GUI sounded pretty gosh darn tootin' nice..

but the more i read about Raspbmc, the harder it's getting to justify not going down that route! to quote the website:

Here’s why you might like Raspbmc:

• Free and open source.
• No knowledge of Linux is needed. If you want to use the Raspberry Pi as an XBMC frontend you can do exactly that with no knowledge of how anything works.
• It can be installed with a few simple clicks from a Mac or a PC running Windows or Linux.
• It’s auto updating, meaning you constantly get new features, performance and driver updates. You can however turn updates off at any time.
• It supports 1080p playback.
• Share your content from your PC over NFS, SMB, FTP and HTTP.
• AirPlay and AirTunes support allow you to send music and video from your iDevice to the TV.
• Full GPIO support!
• As it is a Debian system, it is completely expansive and you can install any packages from Debian’s massive repository!
• … and much more!

i'm pretty sure the current apple tv can't stream 1080p video, whereas these babies reckon they can.. plus, they're essentially just a little linux PC the size of a fag packet (or, indeed, whatever novelty container you fancy) so the potential for expansion spiffing!

anyone current use it, or use the raspberry pi as a media centre in another way? i'd love to hear some first-hand experiences.. at the moment, i stream all my tv/films to the TV using a modded wii, but it only supports SD, and is a bit clunky, so i want to get a dedicated media streamer that will handle my HD content, etc..

apple tv pros:

• looks nice, compact, etc.
• has a lovely user interface
• will work nicely with my current imac/ipad/itunes infrastructure (i assume)

raspbmc pros:

• choose your own box.. more effort in this regard, but it means it can be as discrete as you like, or i could go the other way and put it in something really quirky that would look nice on the tv unit (suggestions welcome)
• upgradeable, so will support more features as time goes on
• supports pretty much any video format you can throw at it

DISCUSS

 

[My Name is URL]

Sorry to bring this up, but you neglect to mention the little HDMI Android plug and play boxes... would they have similar functionality?

(Not going anywhere near any Apple / Android arguments, only mention as I have seen a lot of the android devices about and genuinely don't know if they would do what you mention above....)

 

[tek-monkey]

I was thinking about these the other day myself, must get mine back off Toble and have a play. Apparently they run pretty well, but I'm not that optimistic about 1080p playback TBH.

Also, if you go apple don't get the latest version. You'll notice on ebay that v2 ATVs change hands for more than v3s, this is because the newer ones can't be jailbroken yet so they can't do half the stuff the v2 can with a bit of black magic.