Running XBMC on a $35 computer hardware

[ZeroDamage]

I've been following this project for a while. I've been waiting for this thing to come out and it should be out soon. There is a $25 version with 128MB of RAM and one that is $35 with 256MB of RAM. The 256MB version can run XBMC and play 1080p videos. This thing is awesome!

 

http://www.raspberry...rg/archives/571

[Flitterkill]

It is cool as hell, more so for the other things it will be able to do but honestly an old junker box could do this stuff as well.

 

Been running a computer into the projector for almost 10 years now; probably will 10 years hence as well.

 

Weird convergence times for TVs and content. No idea where it will all settle...

[ZeroDamage]

This thing is only $35. That is the selling point for me. And it is tiny! Has HDMI, ethernet, and a usb port. How freakin awesome is that!

[Flitterkill]

It is.

 

With a full pc though a lot of games become more than viable. YDNJack, MAME, all those BigFish hidden object games, plus all the web stuff, etc. All on a 13-14' wide screen. In HD.

 

Very nice.

[ZeroDamage]

I am just thinking of the possibilities with a small $25/$35 computer. Backup server. Security camera system stashed in your closet. Mini internal web server. Media center. Lots of stuff.

[Biggs]

Wow that is pretty cool. I was excited when by the low price of netbooks, but this is ridiculous!

[amertrash]

The raspberry pi is a cool little piece of hardware, but you in no way would want it for a full time media center - maybe one for the kids. It's GPU only capable of decoding h264, anything else like DiVX, XVid, MPEG II it'll puke, and probably just h.264/MPEG 4 AVC at bit rates lower than 6MB/s. From the video it appears the only container supported by the xmbc port is quicktime (questionable as to whether that is a hardware or software limitation), and no mention of supported audio codecs. If you were planning on doing all your own low-bitrate rips of DVDs/Blu-Ray this might be acceptable, but not if you're looking to download video. Its CPU is an older ARM7 core that would be lucky to perform at 3/4s the speed of an Intel Atom at the same clock for most tasks, and forget about any sort of serious web browsing, HTML5 or Flash. Not knocking the device, very cool hardware, but certainly not a lot of power.

[ZeroDamage]

It's not meant to have a lot of power; it is only $35 bucks. I am still waiting to see what they say about what codecs it can support and what not. Just the same it would be a cheap little thing to play with all the same.