The Pi has an HDMI output that is capable of streaming High Definition Audio Video and also supports CEC for sharing remote control functions. In this chapter, we will look at how to use the Pi as a media server directly from the command line. We will look into displaying images and playing audio from the command line. We will briefly look at some other solutions that people have come up with and finally install RaspBMC (XBMC dedicated Pi image) that uses hardware decoding and CEC out of the box.

If you are going to use Raspbian for these examples, it would be advisable to give the GPU more RAM. A recommended value will be 256 MB or more. Most of these examples will benefit from more GPU RAM than CPU and will improve loading time and stability. You can change core system settings by typing raspi-config in the command line.