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)

Reasons for converting


Media may need to be converted for a variety of reasons. It may be that the current codec in use is inefficient. For example, the MPEG2 codec is at the same bitrate as H264, and approximately half as efficient. That is, an H264 video can be half the size of an MPEG2 video (saving storage) and still look visually equivalent.

Another reason for conversion is if the device does not support the codec that the content is currently encoded in. By converting the video to a format that the device does support, we can get playback support.

Codec breakdown

At present, there are several popular codecs that are in use. A comparison is outlined as follows:

Codec Name

Commonly found on

Efficiency (space requirements)

Supported by Raspbmc

H264

Blu-ray discs, HD-DVD discs, and licensed TV downloads

Best (joint with VC1)

Yes; supported out of the box till Profile L4.1 High

VC1

Blu-ray discs, HD-DVD discs, and licensed TV downloads

Best (joint with H264)

Yes; with an additional...