Book Image

Raspberry Pi Media Center

By : Sam Nazarko
Book Image

Raspberry Pi Media Center

By: Sam Nazarko

Overview of this book

<p>Low-cost and high-performing, with a massively diverse range of uses and applications, the Raspberry Pi is set to revolutionize the way we think about computing and programming. Using it as a Media Center allows everyone to have a low-cost device that is always on, attached to their TV. <br /><br />Imagine controlling your TV with your smartphone, dynamically streaming content that you have on various devices across your home, as and when you want. Raspberry Pi Media Center will show you how to configure the complete experience using readily available and accessible tools, so that you too will soon be enjoying your media from the comfort of your own sofa. <br /><br />With this practical guide, you’ll discover how you can transform your Raspberry Pi into a powerful media center. Using Raspbmc (based on the XBMC distribution), you'll be shown how you can deploy and configure your own media center, including coverage of all the essentials from controlling your device with a TV remote or smartphone, to the creation and customization of your very own media library (including the conversion of any existing collection). You'll even be able to stream multimedia from your devices or directly from the Internet!</p>
Table of Contents (17 chapters)

What is Raspbmc?


Raspbmc is a highly optimized and dedicated media center for Raspberry Pi. It brings XBMC to Raspberry Pi in a fast and self updating package in an easy-to-use manner. This is because Raspbmc has been built specifically for the purpose of running XBMC. Raspbmc is flexible and allows expansion via the Debian packaging system. For example, it is possible to utilize GPIO (general purpose input output) to configure a custom infrared receiver.

XBMC is an open source media center that runs on all major platforms. It began as a project for playing back media on the original Microsoft game console, and it now runs on many platforms. XBMC is not limited to just media playback, and sports a lot of functionality, such as plugins, add-ons, and media scraping. XBMC's existence on the Raspberry Pi can be greatly attributed to the work of Edgar Huceke and Scott Davilla. You can learn more about XBMC at www.xbmc.org.