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Blog Dave's Most Excellent (hopefully) Pi Adventure pt 2: MediaPi
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  • Author Author: element14Dave
  • Date Created: 11 Apr 2013 7:36 PM Date Created
  • Views 354 views
  • Likes 3 likes
  • Comments 1 comment
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Dave's Most Excellent (hopefully) Pi Adventure pt 2: MediaPi

element14Dave
element14Dave
11 Apr 2013
imageWant to build this project?
View Parts

 

Well in case you missed my previous Blog Post you can find it here.  In short, I am the Community Support Lead here at element14 and have decided to try my luck at getting pi on my face (wow what a horrible seque) in any case I decided to start super easy and build a media center using using a Raspberry Pi Model B v2 (512mB) and a Seagate 2tB external hard drive. If I can do this, anyone can, really ANYONE can do this

 

Here is what I used:

 

 

image

 

1 Raspberry Pi Model B v2 (512mB)

1 Mulitcomp Case

1 4gB SD card

1 Seagate 2tB external hard drive

1 USB to micro USB cable

1 Ethernet cable

1 USB Keyboad

1 HDMI cable

 

 

Step 1: Insert your SD card into an SD card reader, go to http://www.raspbmc.com/download/ and download the raspbmc program onto the SD card.

 

Step 2: Safely eject the SD Card  and put in the Rasp Pi, connect via HDMI to a monitor, I was lucky enough to be able to run the USB power from my TV to the Pi, make sure that you are also connected to the internet (the install process for raspbmc needs internet access to work)

 

Step 3: Raspbmc autimatically starts going, grab a coffee or turn your attention to getting some content to watch once its all done.

 

Step 4: Its all done,  download some skins, add ons, or do what I did and just play with the settings for about 45 minutes.

image

 

 

Step 5: Connect the external hard drive to your computer, do all that fun set up stuff and move your content on to the drive. Unfortunately all of my DVDs are well...DVDs and I spent the majority of my time finding the right program to transfer the DVD into a digital format, eventually I got one that will do what I need it to do and ripped a few movies onto the hard drive. It took about 34 minutes start to finish to convert a 2 hr 15 minute movie... I am sure there are other programs that could do it faster, but at this point I just wanted to see if it worked:) After you have your content all set up, plug the hard drive into the Pi and start it up.

 

 

image

Step 6: Select the destination file for where you want raspbmc to look for your content and enjoy your movie.

 

image

 

Step 7: Bust out the calculator and figure how long it will take to convert your DVD collection..cry...and get to work:)

 

 

Now that I have set everything up, I am going to go back and do it again, I think I am going to pick up a category 10 SD card with 8gB of memory, as well as set the Pi up to overclock a bit so it runs faster. Raspbmc seems pretty stable so I am not all that worried about overclocking. 

 

Even though I am really excited I was able to do something with my Pi, I think I am selling myself short by limiting my experience to just downloading a program someone else designed. I picked up a another Pi and will use the 4gB SD to play around for real versus just plugging stuff in and hitting enter a few times...not that there is anything wrong with that, I did just build a 2tB media center for less than $150  after all.

 

If anything what the folks over at rspbmc have shown me is that there is some pretty impressive programs that can work on the Rasp Pi. So I guess its time to hit the books and I will be showing off some novice programming skills in the bear future.

 

See anything I should be doing differently? Let me know in the comments section below.

 

Thanks! 

 

Dave

 

 

Product Name*DescriptionSupplier
Raspberry Pi Model B Raspberry Pi model BRaspberry Pi
Buy Now
Optical Mouse Basic USB optical mouseIONE / Pro Signal
Buy Now
Raspberry Pi Power Supply 120-240v to 5V power supply with micro USB connectorRaspberry Pi
Buy Now
Keyboard Basic USB keyboardGear Head / A4 Tech
Buy Now
Enclosure for Raspberry Pi Clear Plastic enclosure for Raspberry PiMulticomp
Buy Now
Pre-Programmed 4GB SD Card 4GB Class 4 SD card preloaded with Debian 6 LinuxSamsung
Buy Now
Seagate 2TB External Hard Drive2 terabyte USB 2.0 self-powered external hard driveSeagate
Ethernet Cable 9.8 ft (3m) category 5e patch cablePro Signal
Buy Now
HDMI Cable 6.5 ft (2m) male to male standard HDMI cableMolex
Buy Now

 

*Products and resources listed are listed to help members build their own Pi Projects. They are suggestions and listed for educational purposes. For substitutions of any parts, please post a question asking the original author.

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Top Comments

  • bad_boy_y
    bad_boy_y over 12 years ago +1
    Hi I see your post today and your post kicking my ass to boot my old 256mb PI on xbmc this night. Lots of channel look like pretty nice(every south park episode in HD). But I hope full web browser for…
  • bad_boy_y
    bad_boy_y over 12 years ago

    Hi I see your post today and your post kicking my ass to boot my old 256mb PI on xbmc this night. Lots of channel look like pretty nice(every south park episode in HD). But I hope full web browser for see local tv chanel(but flash player do not work on pi for now). If you have newer TV your remote control can control your pi without keyboard and mouse.

     

    enjoy!

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