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"Plug it in and turn your dumb HD tv into a 'Smart'" schenaningans is on the market, if you duck it there are several such USB-sticks, but I dont know how good

by antocv 13y ago

"Plug it in and turn your dumb HD tv into a 'Smart'" schenaningans is on the market, if you duck it there are several such USB-sticks, but I dont know how good any of them are. Its more fun making your own I belive, and you get to play with raspberry if you go that route. Ive tried a Pi model B with XBMC and the output of it is indeed 1080p and looking smooth, it can play an HD file without stuttering/lagging over samba over openvpn. On the openvpn/samba server I have 30mbit up/down and Pi has 54mbit wifi then ADSL with up to 20mbit down. Hm, if you dont want the Pi route, perhaps getting the cheapest andorid tablet with hdmi out would do well, as you can run a upnp-renderer on it, the tablet should have wifi as well. But then youd still have to run a dlna server on some of your computers, for example on laptop.

inthewind 13y ago
Thanks, can the Pi with Plex or XBMC, play straight from say a USB hard drive? What's the audio quality like on it?
- antocv 13y ago
  There is no reason why it wouldnt play straight from a USB hard drive - but it only has 2 usb ports so keep that in mind, I used both of them - wireless keyboard/mouse and wifi. You do need to know some Linux commands, I doubt/havent tried to see if XBMC can auto-mount things inserted. But that would be cool if it worked like that. Perhaps the raspbmc distribution has the automount setup done for you. Audio quality, only had TV speakers to "try" it out with, sounded just like any other content, so I cant tell you if it suits for a high-end audio system, but the audio-over-hdmi worked with no fiddling from my side.
- gman99 13y ago
  The Pi with OpenElec (XBMC) automounts USB drives. The onboard audio is supposed to not be great (crackles when there is USB load? Not sure if this is fixed). But if you're using the audio over HDMI to play through your TV, it should be fine. OpenELEC also supports CEC so you can use your TV remote to directly control XBMC.

by antocv 13y ago

inthewind 13y ago

Thanks, can the Pi with Plex or XBMC, play straight from say a USB hard drive? What's the audio quality like on it?

antocv 13y ago
There is no reason why it wouldnt play straight from a USB hard drive - but it only has 2 usb ports so keep that in mind, I used both of them - wireless keyboard/mouse and wifi. You do need to know some Linux commands, I doubt/havent tried to see if XBMC can auto-mount things inserted. But that would be cool if it worked like that. Perhaps the raspbmc distribution has the automount setup done for you. Audio quality, only had TV speakers to "try" it out with, sounded just like any other content, so I cant tell you if it suits for a high-end audio system, but the audio-over-hdmi worked with no fiddling from my side.
gman99 13y ago
The Pi with OpenElec (XBMC) automounts USB drives. The onboard audio is supposed to not be great (crackles when there is USB load? Not sure if this is fixed). But if you're using the audio over HDMI to play through your TV, it should be fine. OpenELEC also supports CEC so you can use your TV remote to directly control XBMC.