Saw my first Raspberry Pi last night..

[Lazarus]

Arggh! you made I-Scream!

 

[2cvbloke]

Shall I send a small boy around to show you? :-righton

No thanks, I'll get there eventually, after all, I used to be good with computers...

Arggh! you made I-Scream!

Raspberry PiScream I hope... O-Ha

 

[Lazarus]

British clones of the original Chinese device will soon be available.

There's a turnip for the books.

_http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19510040

 

[2cvbloke]

And I have one of the Sony-made British RaspberryPi units...

(though technically speaking, the device was a british design, but RS & Farnell had them made over in the PRC because it was at the time a cheaper alternative, RS are yet to catch up, both in supplying and actually manufacturing the things in the UK)

 

[PaulR]

I'm impressed by the capability for HD media straeming and would like to play around with one for that...

but...

I'm not a programmer and I fear that I would find myself with nowhere to go with it.

Oh dear, it might be sooner than I thought.

Something went "phut" inside my Boxee Box at the weekend after I connected my poortable hard drive and tried to navigate through the folders. The light on the Box went off and now there's a slight crackling noise now when the power plug is inserted so things don't look too good.

 

[excollier]

I have been reading up on these since I first spotted this thread. The Raspberry Pi interests me greatly, but like you, I am no programmer, so I wonder, should I get one? I am waiting for someone to give a reason why, even though I am fascinated by it.
Found a good deal here
_https://www.modmypi.com/shop/raspberry-pi/raspberry-pi-and-modmypi-case

Maplins are now selling them oline for £69.99, all in, if you don't have the peripherals. £82ish if you want a case from them, although ebay would be cheaper for cases.

 

[rolfw]

The Maplin deal tends to defeat the object of the exercise, particularly as they don't offer the option of the Raspberry only, many people will have most of the supporting kit and will simply be duplicating.

Think I may get the unit from CPC, install XBMC and then the NAVI-X plugin, will make a superb little media player.

 

[excollier]

The Maplin deal tends to defeat the object of the exercise, particularly as they don't offer the option of the Raspberry only, many people will have most of the supporting kit and will simply be duplicating.

Think I may get the unit from CPC, install XBMC and then the NAVI-X plugin, will make a superb little media player.

I agree about Maplins, but I have only used a laptop for years, (so no peripherals) as have many, so for them, and me, it's not such a bad deal.
Now to find a valid excuse, or reason, to go out and buy......

edit: last time I had a desktop pc, there was no such thing as a cheap usb keyboard. Windows 3.1 .......

 

[2cvbloke]

You can buy most of the kit you need for a lot less than maplin sells it for, they're doing their usual heavy markup on the kit, so, buy a Pi from Farnell, source a keyboard, mouse, Powered USB Hub and a 1000mA MicroUSB Power supply (most mobile phones these days use them) from any computer shop or even a store like Asda, and a case off ebay, and hey presto you have the full kit for less than Maplin prices...

 

[PaulR]

Found this. Could be the way to go for me. Any comments?

_http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/desktops/how-to-turn-your-raspberry-pi-into-an-xbmc-media-centre-50008599/

 

[rolfw]

Yep, looks fairly straightforward.

 

[excollier]

You can buy most of the kit you need for a lot less than maplin sells it for, they're doing their usual heavy markup on the kit, so, buy a Pi from Farnell, source a keyboard, mouse, Powered USB Hub and a 1000mA MicroUSB Power supply (most mobile phones these days use them) from any computer shop or even a store like Asda, and a case off ebay, and hey presto you have the full kit for less than Maplin prices...

....and then throw in shipping costs to Ireland (Republic) and suddenly Maplin in Londonderry (where I visit frequently) starts to look like a fair price.(Listed as "collect in store" now)
Anyway, I still need a reason to buy one, apart from the fact that I am fascinated by it...

 

[PaulR]

... suddenly Maplin in Londonderry (where I visit frequently) starts to look...

You visit Maplin frequently?

 

[excollier]

No, Londonderry.

Sent from my HTC Tattoo using Tapatalk

 

[Llew]

Well I finally got my pi from RS after many weeks. At least they upgraded the RAM to 512Mb.

Just playing around with it today, bought a 4-port hub, that's all I needed extra, but the PS included with the order didn't seem man enough if I'm going to add any power-hngry peripherals, so I'm using a 3A job. Power plug is wrong size, so I made an adaptor to plug it into another socket/plug that fits the 4-port.

SD card using OpenElec XBMC image shown (DR Dish streaming at the mo) but I have one with Raspbian, which will be used more often for Raspbian's access to their Debian repositories - I'm used to Debian with my Ubuntu stuff on the main PC.

 

[excollier]

Got mine on Thursday, using a HTC phone charger as a psu, the Blackberry was giving wireless mouse problems. Only using Raspbian Wheezy yet, but hope to get Xbian or OpenElec on a separeate card or berryboot soon. I know very little about linux, so this will teach me a lot (I hope)

 

[rolfw]

I use a 2amp USB hub as power supply and my HTC phone as a remote for the Pi, Yatse widget on Android apps.

 

[remlap]

Llew nice setup, if you discover an MPEG-4 HD 4:2:2 feed could you try it through XBMC would love to know the results.

Cheers

 

[Llew]

Llew nice setup, if you discover an MPEG-4 HD 4:2:2 feed could you try it through XBMC would love to know the results.

Cheers

My head's full of stuff I'd like to try Remlap, ATM it's just streaming video from various sites. I don't have a USB DVB-S/S2 dongle to play with, but I have a DVB-T2 Nanostick, and I believe the pi will recognise its Linux driver. There's a TV Headend available for XBMC, so I'll try that first, then maybe get a DVB-S2 stick ( if there is one that'll work).

 

[remlap]

Couldn't you just stream your TBS cards output over the LAN?