Original Goal:
The original goal I set out to achieve was to find a media center application that would keep my kids and those of my new years party guests entertained. The application need to be intuitive, stable and engaging.
In order to achieve this I set out to test the major players in this area, namely,
- RaspBMC
- GeeXBOX
- OpenELEC
- RasPlex
Outcome:
The detailed review of these OSes is contained in the previous blogs.
- RasPlex (New Year’s Party Pack - To entertain the masses or just babysit the kids - RasPlex)
- GeeXBox, OpenELEC, RaspBMC (New Year’s Party Pack - To entertain the masses or just babysit the kids - XBMC: RaspBMC, OpenElec and GeeXBox go head to head)
The outcome of these test was that the best candidate for my Raspberry Pi babysitter was OpenELEC.
Implementation:
The entire kids DVD collection (mine and others) was ripped and stored on to my NAS. This ensured the DVDs weren't going to be scratched on the night. The Raspberry Pi was hidden in the lounge room close to the TV and the wireless keyboard given to eldest child. The parents then ventures out to the back deck and left the kids alone. The Raspberry Pi babysitter did its job very well. The only issues on the night were the occasional fight to sort who's movie should be watched next.
Videos:
Since I didn't feel it was a good idea to further pollute YouTube with my sub-standard videos. I thought it more worthwhile instead to find some good videos that highlight the OSes tested above. So to clarify these are not my videos.
- RaspBMC versus OpenElEC (Raspberry Pi: Openelec Vs Raspbmc - YouTube)
- RasPlex (Rasplex fully cached - YouTube)