A quick side by side comparison of Openelec and Raspbmc, both running on Model B Raspberry Pi's (512MB versions) Find out more information on Tech Made Easy, here: www.techmadeeas...
I certainly do. At the moment I've got both the Pi's shown here running Openelec connected to TV's in my home. Raspbmc was used in this video just to do the comparison.
Hi, no add-on required; the information is automatically scraped by XBMC when you add a folder to the library. You just need to specify the correct media type (TV, movie, music video) when adding the media source. The same goes for Raspbmc
That's a very good point. Both versions are the versions available as of 25/02/13. For Raspbmc that means we're working on an XBMC 12 "Frodo" platform For Openelec that means we're working on XBMC 12 RC3 - so not the final Frodo version.
Thanks for posting the video. I have tried both and a feeling that OpenELEC was a bit more responsive, but there really seems to be a significant difference. It's great to see an actual real-time side-by-side comparison.
This may have been said before but you're right about Raspbmc being controlled by a television remote over HDMI. It's called HDMI-CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) and my Samsung TV supports it. Very handy and only realised it by accident.
Yes, you'll need to share the folder containing your movies by right clicking the folder, selecting sharing and then setting up the share in that window
Not sure why but I'm having the exact opposite to this. Openelec is so much slower for me then Raspbmc. Somebody told me it might be because all of my mkv files that I generally play have DTS audio or Dolby Digital 5.1, which runs 100 times faster on Raspbmc then when I tried them on Openelec. Openelec does boot and run faster in the menus but the interface slows down to a crawl when playing files ect,(fast forward or even trying to pause a movie.)
It's best to check the XBMC wiki for this information. The Raspberry Pi should be able to playback anything that the Windows version does, but you may experience poor performance depending on how files are encoded.
On the home screen? This is a feature of the skin, it's applied in the settings menu. You can choose to show recently added episodes and movies above the menu options.
no, this is made to be a dedicated media center interface, there are many other linux distros that you can use if you could like a traditional pc experience
Just a few points to add if I may, I have been using Openelec since 2.99.1. If Auto update is enabled in the Openelec menu, it does update during boot. HDMI CEC control has been working right out of the box for me (tv detected as "Pulse CEC Adaptor") A couple of plus points for raspbmc is that the SSH password can be changed without having to compile the OS from source, and you are not limited to only XBMC functionality, it is much easier to install other software/daemons etc. Hope this helps
Hi, I take your point, others have mentioned it as well. However I don't think it was the case with this example as I'm happily using both power supplies with my Pi's running all kinds of different OS's. Could be lots of things, a bad image, SD card playing up, Pi having a bad day. My experience with the Pi in general has been far from stable at times.
They should be identical, they were ordered within a few days of each other, both from RS. Both Model B's, both 512MB Both using Class 10 8GB Transcend SD cards Neither has been purposefully overclocked Neither is using any USB storage, they both have USB keyboards connected though. Neither was running any 3rd party apps or scripts, both had been used with the same scrapers. I was as confused as you are with the delay.
Hi, I've not used Xbian at all, but I'm hearing good things so will look into it. Unfortunately I don't have 3 Pi's and 3 TV's to demonstrate all 3 in one video
Hi, I use the Android XBMC Remote app, and I now use the TV control to control XBMC via CEC. Any USB remote should work, and the smartphone apps just require you to change a couple of options in XBMC settings in order to work.
Raspbmc has CEC working out of the box (that's the feature allowing to use tv remote to control xbmc). It also has built in menu for overclocking the Pi. For me those 2 features alone are worth slight longer delay on loading movie.
In any experiment you need to be critical with the control variables, in this case the control variables are 1) the hardware 2) human interaction as part of the hardware: when comparing the same products, make sure the same keyboards and same TV screens are used, you can always use the same setup and boot up the images - same sd card, use camera tricks to keep an onscreen stopwatch. I am sure you know all this, but this may exentuate the difference.
Excellently done review! I applaud you! The media you are using, is that your personal media through networked access or usb drive, or is that from an add on source? And if so what sources do you use for the libraries?
Thanks for the information. I agree that Raspbmc is MUCH easier to install than Openelec. I wasn't aware of Openelec updating automatically but it's good to know. With CEC, I've since found that it seems to be recognised by the device but won't actually let me control anything. This seems to be the case with both versions though, so maybe an incompatibility with my Samsung TV
Constant crashes means you likely have power supply constraints. RaspBMC might use just a tiny bit more power than OE which put you over the line. Both pieces of Software are stable. With the Pi crashes are usually a hardware issue, and given the relatively low variation in Pi construction quality, the problem usually stems from the much more variable power supply.
Just set up Raspbmc yesterday, and managed to play a Full-HD file at 11.3 gb just fine. There was slight lag / delay as it started up, but after the first 5 seconds, everything was fine. It all depends on transfer speeds though. Via a wired network or from en external HD, you should be fine. Wireless could be a problem if there's a lot of interference. Wireless works fine for me, but my network doesn't collide with any others.
Hi, you need to provide the TV shows and Movies yourself as files on a USB drive or shared network drive. XBMC will then get information from Internet databases regarding the show and movie titles. XBMC do not offer a subscription TV service and there is currently no integration with Netflix.
I could be mistaken but i believe my experience was that openELEC was slightly overclocked by default. If you didn't mess with the settings at all that might be why it's slightly faster. I haven't used raspbmc though, so not sure if it's the same clock speed and whatnot.
You should have posted the CrystalDiskMarks for the SD/USB flash memory, just to make sure one wasn't running off a significantly slower disk. This is especially true if the card's weren't identical but even cards of the same exact make/model can vary significantly.
I started using openelec when the Raspi came out, not because Raspbmc was slower but because it just wouldn't work at all. Good to see that was a good decision.
My personal opinion is that Openelec has a more fluid interface, but I haven't used Raspbmc since this video was made, so I can't comment on newer versions
thank you for this man, I started with Raspbmc and I wanted to used berryboot so I was deciding IF I was going to use OpenElec or I would compile Raspbmc, and I'm clearly going for OpenElec now, so Thank you very much!
i guess you disabled the annotations mate (like i often do hehe). The uploader wrote that they both support hdmi control (hdmi-cec). It's actually pretty obvious, because hdmi-cec is on the hardware side, provided by an extra pin on the connector.
The idea of the MPEG2 license is it is supposed to enable HARDWARE decoding/encoding. The Pi is supposed to software decode MPEG2, but in practice it just seems to refuse to play the video. Probably worth just buying the license if you have a bunch of DVD rips already - it cost me AU$3.10 - less than a cup of coffee.
I was going to change over to Openelec until you mentioned at the end of the video that it doesn't support your regular TV remote. Many a times when my phone is charging, i do use the TV remote, so i guess i will stick with Raspbmc.
I've got mine now and it is wonderfull, I convert my dvds to h264 and plays perfect and also tried some 1080p videos which played great with no overclock on raspbmc. Really worth the cash, it has replaced my dvd player and I now have the most advance media system in the family :)
My OpenELEC Pi was super sluggish navigating menus (especially in add-ons) until I found myself a nice high speed card. And it isn't the sequential write speed that matters (this is the speed card manufacturers advertise a la 'Class 10') it's the random read/write speeds. I had an old Class 6 card lying around that absolutely dominated the benchmarks for transferring small files. It blew my SanDisk Ultras and Extremes out of the water.
Not asking you to run it again. Just saying that your test had a significant anomaly that points to something other than the software as the cause of the performance differences. Of course, if you are saying that the results remain accurate... that's a different matter. It is probably a power supply issue; I have learned to distrust the touted output of power supplies, and even the USB cable can significantly affect power the Pi gets.
Please keep in mind that OpenELEC also auto updates, but it does it in the background while the system is running, not at boot. Not using the raspberry pi yet, but planning on it... :-)
a setting in config.txt controls whether you are getting dvi functionality or full hdmi over the hdmi cable. The default is no sound. The line that needs to be written is: hdmi_drive=2 This is the value that will enable sound over the hdmi interface.
They will likely just be recognised as USB keyboards as the dongle handles all of the interfacing. The only thing you'll need to concern yourself with is the power requirements of the wireless units as the Raspberry Pi doesn't provide a great deal of power to the USB ports
Hi, sometimes it's just that the remote database (TVDB by default) is down for maintenance. But just to be sure, have you confirmed that your network settings are correct and that your Pi has an IP address? You can check from the settings menu.
You flash the SD card with the Rasbian distro that you download from the official RaspberryPi web-page. (.org) Both openelec and raspbmc are disk images that replaces whatever was on the SD-card and they dont come with a desktop environment.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a not-for-profit entity, it is extremely unlikely that they would charge for additional figures in any later models. In fact, the Foundation has gone on records and said there are no plans for a new model, so it's pointless speculating anyway.
I could be wrong, but you may need to buy the MPEG2 license from the Raspberry Pi website to play DVD rips properly. The license is supposed to enable hardware decoding/encoding of MPEG2. My Pi refuses to play any MPEG2, so I am thinking that purchasing the license may fix this.
I'm using OpenElec with a Samsung LCD TV (LCD 46MB something) and via AnyNet+, i can control it with my TV remote (this LCD tv is from late 2009) so yes, it supports it
My experience with raspbmc was not as poor performance wise, as yours was. I notice you had two different power supplies, which I suggest might be the reason for such a noticeable difference. It's been identified as a huge issue with raspi, and there are a number of power supplies that don't provide ample or consistent current, causing huge performance issues at peak usage etc, esp. with the network interface in use concurrently with usb devices drawing over 100mA etc etc..
Do you have have all thoose movies stored or something? How do you get them are they streaming? PLEASE PLEASE answer I really need to know, I'm ordering one now for my TV, I have all my movies stored on the network...
I just notice a big difference in the SD cards used (ie...class 4 or 10). Using a name brand class 10 card does make a difference. Also I tried a newer openelec 3.2.4 image and it seems to run faster now. Like I posted before you can also try overclocking and over volting. It may or may not be needed as openelec should handle overclocking dynamically.
Cyphox Lel wut? The whole SYSTEM is on the SD card. Its how the PI works. James Brown is saying if he ran the same system on a Class 4 or 10 that it would boot and load shit faster.
Thanks for the confirmation, this is something that someone else sent me a message about also. I'll add an annotation to the video to correct what I said.
No, it can decode up to 40Mb/s (same as a bluray player with an original bluray). My friend tested it with a 20GB version of "top gun" and it is flawless. Should receive mine tomorrow :D
There shouldn't be an issue with that, though if it's a hard drive that's powered from the USB port then you may have issues. For best results, get a hard disk that has its own power supply.
for raspbmc you also dont need to be familiar with debian linux. It's like OpenELEC based on linux and you have, if you want, the possibility to use it to install debian packages.
Great. Got that. I tried to turn it on for the source but it won't update, do you need the folder or file names to be just the film title? I have 'The A-Team [DATE]' - do I just need 'The A-Team'. Also how do I add TV Shows / Movies to the home screen? From my source folder? I currently have just Videos...?
This really needs updating, raspbmc has had many updates greatly improving performance and even DTS has been improved, mine is playing 1080p video perfect from a usb harddrive.
Would you like to pay 40 dollars and always get the licenses? Even when you don't need them? And for your speculation, if every port would also have a license, that would make the Pi even cheaper and you pay extra if you really need the HDMI or extra USB port. But that speculation is off anyway since MPEG2 (codec) needs a license and HDMI doesn't, it's just a port.
hi . have you managed to config the wifi settings on openlec yet as im having trouble...i know its not my wifi as i also have a raspmc card and that works perfect ... a bit slow but works thanks lisa x
Thanks for taking the time to do this comparison, it makes my decision a lot easier for when my pi arrives next week!
I certainly do. At the moment I've got both the Pi's shown here running Openelec connected to TV's in my home. Raspbmc was used in this video just to do the comparison.
Hi, no add-on required; the information is automatically scraped by XBMC when you add a folder to the library. You just need to specify the correct media type (TV, movie, music video) when adding the media source. The same goes for Raspbmc
That's a very good point. Both versions are the versions available as of 25/02/13.
For Raspbmc that means we're working on an XBMC 12 "Frodo" platform
For Openelec that means we're working on XBMC 12 RC3 - so not the final Frodo version.
Thanks for posting the video. I have tried both and a feeling that OpenELEC was a bit more responsive, but there really seems to be a significant difference. It's great to see an actual real-time side-by-side comparison.
This may have been said before but you're right about Raspbmc being controlled by a television remote over HDMI. It's called HDMI-CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) and my Samsung TV supports it. Very handy and only realised it by accident.
Dude thank you for the effort u put in this video! The setup to show everything an so on is just amazing!
Both of the Pi's are clean builds, it may have been a bug that's been subsequently fixed. But this is how it was on the day of recording
Yes, you'll need to share the folder containing your movies by right clicking the folder, selecting sharing and then setting up the share in that window
Not sure why but I'm having the exact opposite to this. Openelec is so much slower for me then Raspbmc. Somebody told me it might be because all of my mkv files that I generally play have DTS audio or Dolby Digital 5.1, which runs 100 times faster on Raspbmc then when I tried them on Openelec. Openelec does boot and run faster in the menus but the interface slows down to a crawl when playing files ect,(fast forward or even trying to pause a movie.)
It's best to check the XBMC wiki for this information. The Raspberry Pi should be able to playback anything that the Windows version does, but you may experience poor performance depending on how files are encoded.
On the home screen? This is a feature of the skin, it's applied in the settings menu. You can choose to show recently added episodes and movies above the menu options.
no, this is made to be a dedicated media center interface, there are many other linux distros that you can use if you could like a traditional pc experience
Just a few points to add if I may, I have been using Openelec since 2.99.1.
If Auto update is enabled in the Openelec menu, it does update during boot.
HDMI CEC control has been working right out of the box for me (tv detected as "Pulse CEC Adaptor")
A couple of plus points for raspbmc is that the SSH password can be changed without having to compile the OS from source, and you are not limited to only XBMC functionality, it is much easier to install other software/daemons etc.
Hope this helps
Thanks for a purely, seemingly unbiased, comparative video.
"seemingly unbiased" I like that!
Hi, I take your point, others have mentioned it as well. However I don't think it was the case with this example as I'm happily using both power supplies with my Pi's running all kinds of different OS's.
Could be lots of things, a bad image, SD card playing up, Pi having a bad day. My experience with the Pi in general has been far from stable at times.
Thank you for this. Very useful when deciding. The MKV file lag that Jeremy mentions would also be helpful to see.
They should be identical, they were ordered within a few days of each other, both from RS.
Both Model B's, both 512MB
Both using Class 10 8GB Transcend SD cards
Neither has been purposefully overclocked
Neither is using any USB storage, they both have USB keyboards connected though.
Neither was running any 3rd party apps or scripts, both had been used with the same scrapers.
I was as confused as you are with the delay.
Hi, I've not used Xbian at all, but I'm hearing good things so will look into it. Unfortunately I don't have 3 Pi's and 3 TV's to demonstrate all 3 in one video
Hi, I use the Android XBMC Remote app, and I now use the TV control to control XBMC via CEC.
Any USB remote should work, and the smartphone apps just require you to change a couple of options in XBMC settings in order to work.
While your comment is completely valid, I would like to add that bittorrent is a 1-click install from within Openelec (transmission).
Raspbmc has CEC working out of the box (that's the feature allowing to use tv remote to control xbmc). It also has built in menu for overclocking the Pi. For me those 2 features alone are worth slight longer delay on loading movie.
And to answer your questions about the DVD menus, XBMC can play DVD rips in ISO format. And it should show all menus, etc.
In any experiment you need to be critical with the control variables, in this case the control variables are 1) the hardware 2) human interaction
as part of the hardware: when comparing the same products, make sure the same keyboards and same TV screens are used, you can always use the same setup and boot up the images - same sd card, use camera tricks to keep an onscreen stopwatch. I am sure you know all this, but this may exentuate the difference.
Question is, are both running the same SD Cards ie Class 10? Ill try both to see what works best. Nice video, thanks for making it.
Even so, it seems really stable, I've not had any issues with it crashing, other than a few AirPlay issues.
Excellently done review! I applaud you! The media you are using, is that your personal media through networked access or usb drive, or is that from an add on source? And if so what sources do you use for the libraries?
As stated in the video, this is my own personal media streamed from a NAS drive on my home network.
Thanks for the information. I agree that Raspbmc is MUCH easier to install than Openelec.
I wasn't aware of Openelec updating automatically but it's good to know.
With CEC, I've since found that it seems to be recognised by the device but won't actually let me control anything. This seems to be the case with both versions though, so maybe an incompatibility with my Samsung TV
Constant crashes means you likely have power supply constraints. RaspBMC might use just a tiny bit more power than OE which put you over the line. Both pieces of Software are stable. With the Pi crashes are usually a hardware issue, and given the relatively low variation in Pi construction quality, the problem usually stems from the much more variable power supply.
Just set up Raspbmc yesterday, and managed to play a Full-HD file at 11.3 gb just fine. There was slight lag / delay as it started up, but after the first 5 seconds, everything was fine. It all depends on transfer speeds though. Via a wired network or from en external HD, you should be fine. Wireless could be a problem if there's a lot of interference. Wireless works fine for me, but my network doesn't collide with any others.
Hi, you need to provide the TV shows and Movies yourself as files on a USB drive or shared network drive.
XBMC will then get information from Internet databases regarding the show and movie titles.
XBMC do not offer a subscription TV service and there is currently no integration with Netflix.
I could be mistaken but i believe my experience was that openELEC was slightly overclocked by default. If you didn't mess with the settings at all that might be why it's slightly faster. I haven't used raspbmc though, so not sure if it's the same clock speed and whatnot.
raspbmc is also overclocked by default
Technically the default Add-On's are:
TheMovieDB (Scraper)
TheTVDB (Scraper)
But both are installed and enabled with XBMC by default.
You should have posted the CrystalDiskMarks for the SD/USB flash memory, just to make sure one wasn't running off a significantly slower disk. This is especially true if the card's weren't identical but even cards of the same exact make/model can vary significantly.
I started using openelec when the Raspi came out, not because Raspbmc was slower but because it just wouldn't work at all. Good to see that was a good decision.
My personal opinion is that Openelec has a more fluid interface, but I haven't used Raspbmc since this video was made, so I can't comment on newer versions
thank you for this man, I started with Raspbmc and I wanted to used berryboot so I was deciding IF I was going to use OpenElec or I would compile Raspbmc, and I'm clearly going for OpenElec now, so Thank you very much!
i guess you disabled the annotations mate (like i often do hehe). The uploader wrote that they both support hdmi control (hdmi-cec). It's actually pretty obvious, because hdmi-cec is on the hardware side, provided by an extra pin on the connector.
The idea of the MPEG2 license is it is supposed to enable HARDWARE decoding/encoding. The Pi is supposed to software decode MPEG2, but in practice it just seems to refuse to play the video.
Probably worth just buying the license if you have a bunch of DVD rips already - it cost me AU$3.10 - less than a cup of coffee.
I wouldn't say so. The NAS I use is quite high powered and even with HD video we're no where near maxing out the available network bandwidth.
I was going to change over to Openelec until you mentioned at the end of the video that it doesn't support your regular TV remote. Many a times when my phone is charging, i do use the TV remote, so i guess i will stick with Raspbmc.
I've got mine now and it is wonderfull, I convert my dvds to h264 and plays perfect and also tried some 1080p videos which played great with no overclock on raspbmc.
Really worth the cash, it has replaced my dvd player and I now have the most advance media system in the family :)
Really interesting - have you tried out Xbian or Rasplex? If so, how did you find them in comparison?
Excellent video. Thank you for taking the time to do this
My OpenELEC Pi was super sluggish navigating menus (especially in add-ons) until I found myself a nice high speed card. And it isn't the sequential write speed that matters (this is the speed card manufacturers advertise a la 'Class 10') it's the random read/write speeds. I had an old Class 6 card lying around that absolutely dominated the benchmarks for transferring small files. It blew my SanDisk Ultras and Extremes out of the water.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS VIDEO! I used it as a ref speed test vs dialogPi.
Not asking you to run it again. Just saying that your test had a significant anomaly that points to something other than the software as the cause of the performance differences. Of course, if you are saying that the results remain accurate... that's a different matter.
It is probably a power supply issue; I have learned to distrust the touted output of power supplies, and even the USB cable can significantly affect power the Pi gets.
thanks for this comparison - exactly what I have been looking for.
Please keep in mind that OpenELEC also auto updates, but it does it in the background while the system is running, not at boot. Not using the raspberry pi yet, but planning on it... :-)
a setting in config.txt controls whether you are getting dvi functionality or full hdmi over the hdmi cable. The default is no sound.
The line that needs to be written is: hdmi_drive=2
This is the value that will enable sound over the hdmi interface.
They will likely just be recognised as USB keyboards as the dongle handles all of the interfacing. The only thing you'll need to concern yourself with is the power requirements of the wireless units as the Raspberry Pi doesn't provide a great deal of power to the USB ports
good demo. what remote do you use ? is it hard to configure ?
Hi, sometimes it's just that the remote database (TVDB by default) is down for maintenance. But just to be sure, have you confirmed that your network settings are correct and that your Pi has an IP address? You can check from the settings menu.
awesome side by side comparison
You flash the SD card with the Rasbian distro that you download from the official RaspberryPi web-page. (.org)
Both openelec and raspbmc are disk images that replaces whatever was on the SD-card and they dont come with a desktop environment.
You can play DVD's on the Windows/Mac/Linux versions of XBMC, but I haven't tried it on the Raspberry Pi variants.
that was an entertaining review, this reviewer sure wanted to like Raspbmc more, and just could not. LOL
Thanks, I couldn't remember the term for it during recording!
I really liked the Openelec distro, but I ended up going Rasbmc, as CD ripping seems to be broken in Openelec.
You're welcome, let me know if you have a different experience, it would be good to hear how others think the two compare
The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a not-for-profit entity, it is extremely unlikely that they would charge for additional figures in any later models. In fact, the Foundation has gone on records and said there are no plans for a new model, so it's pointless speculating anyway.
I could be wrong, but you may need to buy the MPEG2 license from the Raspberry Pi website to play DVD rips properly. The license is supposed to enable hardware decoding/encoding of MPEG2.
My Pi refuses to play any MPEG2, so I am thinking that purchasing the license may fix this.
It's because the Broadcom GPU is capable of doing 1080p decoding from Bluray in hardware. It's what that chip is really designed for.
I'm using OpenElec with a Samsung LCD TV (LCD 46MB something) and via AnyNet+, i can control it with my TV remote (this LCD tv is from late 2009) so yes, it supports it
There are overclocking options on RaspXBMC (you can go a pretty decent amount over the normal clock!) Dunni about Openelec.
good comparison.. it was apparent the OP was disappointed raspbmc fell so far behind
openelec simply smashes raspbmc.
Are your video files in formats that can be decoded by the Raspberry Pi's chipset? Ideally your videos should be in H.264 format.
Yes, everything is stored on a NAS and shared as SMB shares
So have you got these TV shows and movies by ripping blu-rays/dvds or have you downloaded them from the internet?
Thanks! You helped me to choice what OS to use on my Pi3.
Are you using the same make/model of SDCARD on the two machines - if not you are only measuring the difference in card throughput ?
Hi, are you selecting an appropriate scraper when adding titles to your library?
My experience with raspbmc was not as poor performance wise, as yours was. I notice you had two different power supplies, which I suggest might be the reason for such a noticeable difference. It's been identified as a huge issue with raspi, and there are a number of power supplies that don't provide ample or consistent current, causing huge performance issues at peak usage etc, esp. with the network interface in use concurrently with usb devices drawing over 100mA etc etc..
thanks for the demo.
did you tape any video for Xbian?
How about Xbian vs Raspmc vs OpenELEC ?? The whole family
are the movies included with the pi? or was it yours and you pre downloaded on a usb drive?
Do you have have all thoose movies stored or something? How do you get them are they streaming? PLEASE PLEASE answer I really need to know, I'm ordering one now for my TV, I have all my movies stored on the network...
I just notice a big difference in the SD cards used (ie...class 4 or 10). Using a name brand class 10 card does make a difference. Also I tried a newer openelec 3.2.4 image and it seems to run faster now. Like I posted before you can also try overclocking and over volting. It may or may not be needed as openelec should handle overclocking dynamically.
Cyphox Lel wut? The whole SYSTEM is on the SD card. Its how the PI works. James Brown is saying if he ran the same system on a Class 4 or 10 that it would boot and load shit faster.
Hi, once it's indexed the movies it's pretty fast navigating movies, though it does take a few seconds to initially load the movies screen
wow the uploader seems to be very active in the video and in the comments im going to sub and i hope everyone else does too
The movies are stored on my network and accessed via the Raspberry Pi's network port
I believe they were the same cards, though it was a while ago now and I can't honestly remember.
Are you using a powered usb hub? I tried to use Raspbmc but it did not find any keyboard I plugged in, however Raspbian did!
Probably not, Homegroups are specific to Windows, and I believe the host PC has to approve access from other machines.
I no longer have either build set up, the Pi's are being used for other things now.
Do you have a class 10 SD card? or how do you view the movies on network, if so which type of kvm switches do you use?
Thanks for the confirmation, this is something that someone else sent me a message about also.
I'll add an annotation to the video to correct what I said.
Can you connect an external DVD drive and use XBmc to play it? Will it show information about the DVD, too?
No, it can decode up to 40Mb/s (same as a bluray player with an original bluray). My friend tested it with a 20GB version of "top gun" and it is flawless. Should receive mine tomorrow :D
There shouldn't be an issue with that, though if it's a hard drive that's powered from the USB port then you may have issues.
For best results, get a hard disk that has its own power supply.
for raspbmc you also dont need to be familiar with debian linux.
It's like OpenELEC based on linux and you have, if you want, the possibility to use it to install debian packages.
Great. Got that. I tried to turn it on for the source but it won't update, do you need the folder or file names to be just the film title? I have 'The A-Team [DATE]' - do I just need 'The A-Team'. Also how do I add TV Shows / Movies to the home screen? From my source folder? I currently have just Videos...?
This really needs updating, raspbmc has had many updates greatly improving performance and even DTS has been improved, mine is playing 1080p video perfect from a usb harddrive.
Do you think it matters what kind of sd card you use? Maybe that could be an issue on boot times and load application times.
Is there a certain add-on I'm supposed to download in order to get the nice poster art related backgrounds?
Would you like to pay 40 dollars and always get the licenses? Even when you don't need them? And for your speculation, if every port would also have a license, that would make the Pi even cheaper and you pay extra if you really need the HDMI or extra USB port. But that speculation is off anyway since MPEG2 (codec) needs a license and HDMI doesn't, it's just a port.
Thanks for summing those things up, I'll be using OpenElec instead of Raspbmc then :)
Do the TV shows come preloaded? or do you have to buy a subscription to netflix or XBMC?
Did you have any problem with mkv? or why do you decode the movies in mp4?
I was curious if they are both clocked at the same speeds for this test?
hi . have you managed to config the wifi settings on openlec yet as im having trouble...i know its not my wifi as i also have a raspmc card and that works perfect ... a bit slow but works thanks lisa x