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)

Remote streaming


We will primarily focus on streaming content from a remote system.

Remote streaming versus local playback

While remote streaming has some distinct advantages, it is not often necessary for this kind of setup. I've outlined a few reasons why remote streaming is advantageous and a few reasons why it may not be.

Advantages of network streaming

Disadvantages of network streaming

Content can be streamed from one machine to multiple devices simultaneously.

Remote system must be on whenever you wish to play content from it.

Maintaining your library across all devices can be done by updating a single location. Local playback requires identical content across multiple storage devices for each device to have the same content.

Higher energy consumption because the device your Pi is streaming from must be on as well.

Backups of media can be performed more easily as it is in a single location.

Generally, this works best on a server (a computer dedicated for the role of remote...