Raspberry Pi Builds. These builds are based on the ARM architecture and run on Raspberry Pi only. There are separate builds for first-generation (RPi) including Raspberry Pi Zero and Raspberry Pi Zero W and second-generation (RPi2, RPi3) boards. Please select the right one!
A few months ago, I did a general XBMC setup guide and covering the basics like installing plugings, repositories and setting up shortcuts. You can check it out here…
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Today however, I will be showing you how to set up XBMC on your Raspberry Pi.
What You will Need
I would highly recommend a class 10 SD card for improved performance. You can also install XBMC on USB stick (you will still need a SD Card to boot from) which offers even more performance gains but from my experience, this is unstable and the installation can be easily corrupted.
Also check to see if your TV is CEC compatible. This lets you use your TV remote to control you Raspberry Pi via the HDMI cable which is great is it mean no extra controllers lying around!
Which XBMC Version?
I would highly recommend XBian and here’s why.
XBMC comes in 3 main flavors for the Raspberry Pi. OSmc, Openelec and XBian. Each distro has its own merits but for the month I’ve been using my Pi as a media center, XBian is by far the most stable of the 3.
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Because I have chosen to power my Raspberry Pi via a spare USB port from my TV, I rarely “power down” XBMC correctly. I just turned my TV on and off as you do. This was constantly corrupting both the Raspbmc and Openlec installs. And I mean constantly! I was at the point where I was about to give up on the whole XBMC/Reaspberty Pi combination as a usable media center.
In fact, I have only ever installed XBian once. XBian just works and don’t seem to break anywhere near as easily as the other two distros.
Installing XBian
Installing XBian is very easy. The clever people over at XBian.org have created installers for Windows, Mac and Linux so download the appropriate one for your system.
Once downloaded, run the program and flash the SD card with the XBain 1.0 Beta 1.1
Connecting Everything Up
Now that you have your flashed SD card, insert it into your Raspberry Pi, connect the HDMI, Ethernet cable, mouse and keyboard.
Make sure you have selected the correct HDMI input on your TV and power on the Pi. This can be done using either a micro USB power adapter or micro USB power cable from your TV. Now just follow the the onscreen instruction.
Once compleated, XBain will boot into the default XBMC home screen. To setup some of the main features of XBMC or see how to install the plugins I use, check out my XBMC setup guide here.
Rounding Up
I have used XBian with my Pi for over a month now and have found it great! It’s been stable and generally responsive. This can only improve with further updates in the coming months.
Tip: Once you have your perfect setup and XBMC is running the way you like it, backup your SD card using Win32 Disk Imager just in case. Its much easier flash your custom images than re installing all the plugins, repositories and tweaks.
Any questions? Disagree with me? Please let me know in the comments bellow.
Turn your Raspberry Pi into a $35 Media Center with XBMC!
Why XBMC?
We asked you guys what you would do if you had a Raspberry Pi and overwhelmingly, you wanted to make a media center. We did it and found some things out. If you're unfamiliar with the Raspberry Pi, it's a $35 computer with a 700MHz processor, 2 USB ports, Ethernet, HDMI, analog video and audio out. You power it with a USB adapter. It's a pretty powerful machine at a low cost and it sips electricity. We loaded RaspBMC on to our Raspberry Pi. It is a specially made version of XBMC. XBMC is a free media center piece of software that is available for all platforms. It originated on the Xbox (formerly known as 'Xbox Media Center') and made its way to the PC. RaspBMC is a tiny version of XBMC that is made specially for the hardware on the Raspberry Pi.
Loading RaspBMC
You have to load RaspBMC onto an SD card. We suggest an 8GB Class 10 card. That SD card is used by the Raspberry Pi as its hard drive because the device does not have any onboard storage. You can use a command line or go with the easier GUI solutions. The official Windows installer is made by the RaspBMC guys. There's also a Mac installer called XPi.
RaspBMC on your Pi
Once you get your XBMC installer on the card, plug in your SD card to your Raspberry Pi. Then attach all the other cables (network, HDMI, USB devices and power). We highly suggest using a powered USB hub to support your wireless keyboard or mouse. Once you power it up, the installation process will continue on the SD card. It ought to take about 30 minutes to download and update all the components.
Performance
The Raspberry Pi handles a lot of things well. Web streaming video, Airplay (audio better than video), local video file playback were all very good. We did have issues with playing videos from a network resource. It wasn't an issue every time, but we found a workaround. If you have another PC, use it as a server and run a transcoder like PS3 Media Server or TVersity. PS3 Media Server is free and runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. TVersity costs $4 and runs on Windows Only. Overall, the Raspberry Pi worked very well as a Media Center with XBMC. Responsiveness could be a little slow from time to time, but it's easy to forgive since the device is only $35.
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We've got a great active community where you can discuss ideas with other folks over at Google Plus. Give it a look and get involved! Reith Walls with a tip on Media Monkey - you guys missed a MAJOR feature of Media Monkey. Once you have everything tagged, you can right click your ENTIRE library, tell it to auto-rename and organize the files, and Media Monkey will actually re-name all of your music based on the proper tags, and then organize them into Artist and Album folders. Not only does it get everything tagged, but it gets everything organized too.
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