Shoot me now

Can I offer some advice ?   Don't post or read stuff over there, not worth it..   OTOH, C- for effort, must try harder, you've not been accused of being a concern troll yet

Hey, look at the bright side - at least you didn't get banned over it..

Not to hijack your thread, but I have to say - I find it very odd to see Liz linking Alan Sugar's box and pointing out that we could do (have done) the same thing with RPi/XBMC. The reason I find this odd is that the RPi wasn't intended as a media centre device (by the Foundation), instead focusing on producing an approachable, learnable, non-intimidating device to get kids into programming again.

I know that a random thread over there doesn't translate into a change in the Foundation's official mission. I am a little puzzled to see her, of all people, advocating an application of the RPi tech this way. The more I think about it, it actually bugs me a little. Every RPi that is packaged by one of us "entrepreneurial types" as a media play device means one fewer in the hands of kids.

For context's sake - I have played with RaspBMC to amazing effect. It works far better than it ought to. I can't bring myself to dedicate an RPi to be my Media Centre though. I've an AppleTV (Jailbroken/rooted) that runs the same version of XBMC, plus lets me do Netflix and iTunes. So yeah - the RPi is a valid option as an XBMC platform. Very much so.

Should it bug me this much that it sounds like Liz seems to be saying this too?

Selsinork: <Fawlty>I think I came close once, but I got away with it </Fawlty> http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=4436#p58537

Ken, I understand where you are coming from. The thing is, very little that comes from the Foundation makes a lot of sense most of the time, particularly on the uses for it. They seem to love posting news items about 'how it can do x' but x has been achieved by two people with PhD's and are experts in their field etc. and the likes of little old me being able to do the same are virtually nil. I'm reasonably OK with technology and can normally muddle through myself (though nowhere near as competent as some of the people here) and if i'm scared off by some of the stuff then a lot of others that have bought this £25 computer just out of interest are going to be very confused.

There doesn't seem to be any coherent plan that I can see to produce user guides, general documentation or anything like what I think is needed to provide the eco system support that an educational tool like this needs. I'm not involved in education, so I'm probably wrong, but drawing on my own experience the first thing I looked for in 198X when I unpacked my C64 was the user guide which took you through the basics.

There are some notable external efforts going on, but there doesn't, to my mind at least, seem to be anything coming out centrally to provide a defined path of learning.

TL;DR Yes, I think it should be bugging you :-)

There doesn't seem to be any coherent plan that I can see

Yup, That's become increasing clear.  Even simple stuff like having the main page of their site having direct links to all the basic get-you-started stuff and moving the blog off to a corner would be a good start.

Took me something like 7 or 8 mouse clicks to get from the front page to the verified peripherals list on the wiki - that's for someone who knows what he's looking for and exactly where to find it. So I'd have to agree that there's going to be a lot of confuse people out there, especially as they get more of them into the hands of the masses.

Ken Klavonic wrote:

 

... I find it very odd to see Liz linking Alan Sugar's box and pointing out that we could do (have done) the same thing with RPi/XBMC. The reason I find this odd is that the RPi wasn't intended as a media centre device (by the Foundation), instead focusing on producing an approachable, learnable, non-intimidating device to get kids into programming again.

Well, the BCM2835 is a very capable media processor.  That's what it was designed for, and that's how it's used by Roku.  The GPU needs a control and I/O processor to tell the GPU what to do and engage in menial tasks like polling USB devices, so they added a very cheap ARM core.  It's the part we get to use without handcuffs.  Yes, it can be used for programming and for some applications (like mine) it's fine.  For media applications that can mostly use the GPU it's fine.  For learning about programming it's fine.  But applications that need a lot of networking, mass storage, or memory will quickly expose RasPi's limitations.

No argument here. Everything you state is correct; Roku uses it for a good reason.

My issue (if you can call it that) is that Roku's use is completely in-line with the stated objectives of their organization (corporation) - make a profitable media player that has a bunch of whizzy features and a good price-tag.

As I understand the goals of the Foundation (as expressed at http://www.raspberrypi.org/about), the RPi wasn't intended to be a media player; the Foundation identifies larger issues to solve than how to watch teevee on cheap hardware. I don't believe there's any reference to video in the page linked above.

I have no technical issues whatsoever with using an RPi as an XBMC (or other media player) platform. I've done it. It works pretty good too. I'm having a kind of existential angst over a member of the Foundation promoting its use that way. That's all.

Ken Klavonic wrote:

 

As I understand the goals of the Foundation (as expressed at http://www.raspberrypi.org/about), the RPi wasn't intended to be a media player; the Foundation identifies larger issues to solve than how to watch teevee on cheap hardware. I don't believe there's any reference to video in the page linked above.

 

 

I have no technical issues whatsoever with using an RPi as an XBMC (or other media player) platform. I've done it. It works pretty good too. I'm having a kind of existential angst over a member of the Foundation promoting its use that way. That's all.

I hear you, and I'd guess I'd find it shocking as well except that I've been following RasPi since circa August 2011 and I've seen lots of media applications and games promoted at raspberrypi.org, e.g., blog post #2: Demo – Raspberry Pi running Quake 3.  Well, that's fine, nice demo, yes I guess you need a way to capture the interest of children in the Age of Short Attention Spans.  I mostly just tune that stuff out.  I'm hoping that RasPi does encourage students' delving into programming, and it would be nice if my work contributes to that.  On the other hand, I'm realistic about what appeals to the masses and realize that I'm here as a hitchhiker taking advantage of technology that's only cheap because it has mass appeal.

Quake 3 was a good thing to use for a demo, since lots of people will have seen it. When the 'wow' factor wears off and you realise it's a 13 year old game and there's been a version to run in your browser under flash for what five years, it's somewhat less impressive.

XBMC and such like is fine too, but the videos I've seen of that show a very sluggish UI - maybe that's better with the recent sdcard improvements. For any serious mass appeal media player the important thing is going to be WAF. That means mpeg2, and any other mising codecs, case, remote, slick software that's not sluggish, plays Eastenders/Corrie/Neighbours/(insert favourite soap here) flawlessly.  I'm not convinced the Pi is that thing. Maybe a Roku2, maybe something else.

I can easily see a large part of the mass appeal vanishing as people find out it's not the 'ideal' media player and subsequently a lot of them sitting gathering dust.

I've certainly noticed a lot of stuff that appears to go against the stated educational goals of the Foundation. Maybe their goals have changed, which would be fine, but that needs them to put something up saying they've tossed the educational thing and are going into competition with the Roku for a cheap media player or whatever. Otherwise some of us will remain puzzled as to what their goal really is.

in the meantime, I'm with you on taking advantage of the cheap hardware while I can.

The whole thing gets odder the more you look at it.

One thing that has always perplexed me about the design is that it was allegedly so hard to get the price down to $25/$35 that they had to drop Pete's switched power management for linear regulators just to save some pennies, yet they retained the CSI/DSI connectors which added cost for everyone, complicated the routing, made the layout of peripheral connectors worse, and resulted in loss of I2S and probably other useful signals.

If the goal of Pi is really as declared in the propaganda, I don't think that those two connectors would be on the board.  It just doesn't make engineering tradeoff sense for achieving the desired rock bottom price if the goals are simply those stated and no others.  If I had been making the project management decisions, I would have needed some extra project goals to justify retaining the CSI/DSI connectors versus other board features that put pressure on cash.

Morgaine.