(Raspberry Pi) TV Common interface socket possible uses?

[Charlie]

I am disapointed as the three Sandisk 8 Gig SDHC-Ultra class 10 cards that I just bought are not compatible with my Pi
I can only assume they are too sophisticated.... good job they work in the camera I can now go out and take thousands of photo's before they each fill up -

Oh no, that is a shame. Try formatting with this tool before putting Raspbian or Raspbmc on the SD card.

[Trashcooky]

I am disapointed as the three Sandisk 8 Gig SDHC-Ultra class 10 cards that I just bought are not compatible with my Pi
I can only assume they are too sophisticated.... good job they work in the camera I can now go out and take thousands of photo's before they each fill up -

Oh no, that is a shame. Try formatting with this tool before putting Raspbian or Raspbmc on the SD card.

Thanks for that Charlie, I will give it a go - however in the mean-time I ran across this thread: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=80342

What do you make of the claims?

[Trashcooky]

Oh no, that is a shame. Try formatting with this tool before putting Raspbian or Raspbmc on the SD card.

Unfortunately Charlie this didn't work I got exactly the same response as before with the green HDD led giving a regular pulsed twin flash over and over again but no boot. It is just like when you have an under-powered external HDD in the USB and it goes click ..........click........click but never quite takes off until you plug in the external power to help it on its way.

I don't think this is a power issue here though as my power supply is well up to the job and the power led on the Pi is steady as a rock. I did something else which was to turn out a disappointment but only because I wasn't thinking - the neat little WIFI dongle I bought http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008 ... UTF8&psc=1 I plugged it into the Pi and then set up the SSID and the WIFI key but it wouldn't work - then the penny dropped..... I had no immediate way to install the driver that came with it .....DOH!

It just goes to show how living in a dominant world of MS Windows plug-n-play puts you into a particular mind-set.... I will look at this again later as I am having other issues I need to deal with first.

My Pi running XBMC was absolutely brilliant when I first set things up - I am using Ethernet and playback is faultless - my movie collection is deliberately restricted to 720P which is all I need. However, as I increased the Pi's load by adding paths to more movies, my music and my pictures it becomes clear that unless you are very patient with your commands - i.e. press remote.....wait up to 5 seconds to see the command actioned on screen.... If you don't wait for the key-press response and press again you simply fill the buffer with commands that either eventually catch up and action all at once in a mad rush taking you away from where you wanted to be, or it simply freezes.

I have had a few freezes now and each time has forced me to power down and each time I have done this it has scrambled the SD card with a single line message on reboot across the screen saying Kernel panic! This has sent me back to GO without collecting £200.00 several times now requiring complete re-installation of the raspbmc system.

It is clear to me that evidence experienced during my experimenting shows that once the Pi/XBMC has populated all the data it want's to scrape into your collection from the internet and the XBMC cache has been fully built - that things improve. However, in my case this is interrupted too frequently with the message "connection lost with the server do you wish to continue - Y or N"

I think I will start a clean thread on XBMC on the Pi as I seem to have explored several limits and the info may be useful to others.

I have XBMC installed on three cross-platform devices. My Excel, my Raspberry Pi, and my Windows 8 64bit laptop.
No prizes for guessing which one works the best.

[Trashcooky]

Well..... I am right flummoxed..... began to think to think I was going round the bend.... (although the wife thinks I'm already there ) My Pi froze again so I had to reload the raspbmc image onto the only card I have that seems to work which has constantly been the Sandisk sdhc 4 Gig class 8 card, except when I tried to boot up again all I got is the pulsing flashes and pause of the green HDD led.

Having desperately sought answers on the Pi forum it seems that I am not alone with these woes but I couldn't find a definitive answer. However, one post seemed confident that such responses from the PI are caused by corrupted files in the bootloader image.

So I deleted my previous Windows raspiambc installer and re-downloaded a fresh copy - and hey Presto even the 8 Gig SDHC Ultra that refused to work previously now works just fine.

I am beginning to think that the whole raspbmc/Pi operation is rather like a card mountain - looks lovely until there is a breeze then the whole lot falls over.

[Trashcooky]

I have been having some frustrations with my Raspberry Pi so here is an update of some of my experiences and a link which may interest those thinking of using the Pi as an HTPC http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=152339 which I think wraps the Media Centre possibilities up very well and no doubt answers many of your questions too.

Meanwhile I still think the Pi is amazing for the price and with XBMC (Raspbmc version) installed it is a very cheap way of upgrading your TV to a pseudo-smart TV using many of XBMC's available video add-ons. My experiences with the Pi leads me to say (along with many others online) that the Pi is not particularly robust operationally because of the following operating obligations.

You need a rock steady power supply at all times capable of supplying 5 volts at - at least 700Ma just to simply power the Pi up in the first place let alone do anything demanding. A minimum of 1.00 amp power unit is stated by Pi as necessary along with a warning that many USB<insert country of origin here> chargers claiming to be rated at 1.00 amp or higher, frequently are not in reality. So the advice here is don't skimp on the choice of power supply to your Pi. It is claimed that most freezing and lock-ups which occur on the Pi are usually caused by an insufficient or unstable power source.

My own experience and also that of others quoted online is that the Pi is fussy about its SD card types - however there are contradictory arguments on various Pi orientated web sites which state that going for the very best, very fastest card is the right way to go where-as some folk state no performance gains seen between a class 4 bog standard SD card and a top notch class 10 card?

In my own case I did experience a lot of problems with my collection of SD cards, finding that I had only one which would boot the Pi - however, later when I had to re-install Raspbmc following a card-scrambling crash/freeze - forced power-down, I couldn't even get that card to work? I discovered that by downloading the necessaries afresh and re-flashing the card with this fresh download that all my cards now suddenly seem compatible .... so I can only assume I used a corrupted download in the first place.

I have moved on slightly technically by installing Raspbmc directly onto a USB memory stick - you still require an SD card plugged in to the Pi as well to direct the booting process to the USB drive but the performance gains - and I have to say so far - stability, seem to be well worth it.

If you have ever used XBMC yourself you will know that it is undoubtedly the very best open source, cross-platform Media Centre available, and this remains true with the Raspbmc version too - the usability problems are more let-downs and disappointments of the Pi itself during the navigation processes which begin to show the weaknesses of the old ARM processor used to construct the current 512-Ram model.
This statement is both true and unfair as we tend to expect (or at least want) desktop PC performance from what is in reality little more than a child's toy.

My biggest problem seems to be that my video collection is just too large - so I thought to myself....what do you do with a physical collection that is too large.... you split it. Unfortunately this is not quite as easy as one might think as if you want to be able to find all your movies using the movies tab in XBMC, then even if you split the path locations even down to say 26 alphabetical folders, the XBMC interface still scrapes them all back into one location.

In practice I have found that up to about 300 - 720p films is about as much as the Arm processor can cope with on a Pi and still be usably bearable (at least for me - others may disagree) which rather defeats the object (well in my instance anyway). However, it is very versatile in other areas such as the video add-ons I mentioned earlier.

I have found that add-ons like NASCAR, Classic Movies, and the like all stream quite acceptably even if the quality of some of the 1950's original Classic Movies films leaves much to be desired on the eye. I shall keep my set up which is rather crudely strapped to the back of my TV and which now consists of the Pi + a 7 way 2amp rated USB hub which I am using for both powering the Pi and for USB devices - so dual purpose - a 4Gig standard class4 SDHC card (just for boot redirect) an 8 Gig USB pen drive, my MCE remote control receiver and a new mini keyboard/touchpad receiver - with the board connected to my Router via Ethernet cable, TV via HDMI and of course the mains.



If you want a real close up view of the original 4288 x 3216 image you can get it here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/62587913/100_0935.JPG

Meanwhile, as I know that XBMC works so well on my laptop without any navigation bottlenecks I will keep my eyes open for something as small but more powerful than this edition raspberry Pi to completely turn my TV into a smart TV for a fraction of the cost of replacing it with a commercially manufactured one.

[Charlie]

@TC - I too find the RPi not that great as a HTPC - I have been testing this Android TV Dongle and with its RK3066 SoC it is very quick. All the on demand TV channels work fine with it (except channel 5). TVCatchup works too, just testing XBMC on it but it keeps crashing at the mo'. Wifi works fine as long as your router is on channel 10,11,12 or 13.

Also I have rooted this (not that easy, but do able) and fun_ (on XDA) has CWM for it which I have on put on the MK809 (very easy to do this part) and this works great. So far very pleased with it and the device now comes with a 2A power supply.

[Trashcooky]

@TC - I too find the RPi not that great as a HTPC - I have been testing this Android TV Dongle and with its RK3066 SoC it is very quick. All the on demand TV channels work fine with it (except channel 5). TVCatchup works too, just testing XBMC on it but it keeps crashing at the mo'. Wifi works fine as long as your router is on channel 10,11,12 or 13.

Also I have rooted this (not that easy, but do able) and fun_ (on XDA) has CWM for it which I have on put on the MK809 (very easy to do this part) and this works great. So far very pleased with it and the device now comes with a 2A power supply.

Looks very good Charlie - thanks for the heads up, unfortunately for me my TV is too old to have built-in USB which is why I originally asked on the thread " TV Common interface socket possible uses? ". Still maybe a new telly might be on the cards once the daughter's wedding is out of the way in June. Meanwhile, I can always link-up my laptop via HDMI if I just can't stand the lag any more.


EDIT UPDATE: Whoops, I just looked a bit closer at the plug end which I thought was USB - glad to see it is HDMI so maybe I will have a go. Thanks Charlie.

[tony0204]

Thanks for the write up Trashcooky
Playing around with it myself, and running from USB Stick. Which does give better performance.
Mine is lashed up like yours at the moment, separate bits all over my desk
Was looking for a case to put it in, which would make a media player, with all ( or most ) in the case.
Came upon this thread :-

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... 40&t=29667
Sent ModMyPi an email there reply :-

Hi Tony,
It's currently being developed by us that is correct - I would say
around 2 months away!
We're having a bit of a game trying to fit everything in, if you keep
an eye on that thread we'll update it as soon as we're happy with the
layout, and have the components all ready to be integrated into a
prototype.
Kindest Regards,

www.modmypi.com

[Trashcooky]

Thanks for the write up Trashcooky
Playing around with it myself, and running from USB Stick. Which does give better performance.
Mine is lashed up like yours at the moment, separate bits all over my desk
Was looking for a case to put it in, which would make a media player, with all ( or most ) in the case.
Came upon this thread :-

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... 40&t=29667
Sent ModMyPi an email there reply :-

Hi Tony,
It's currently being developed by us that is correct - I would say
around 2 months away!
We're having a bit of a game trying to fit everything in, if you keep
an eye on that thread we'll update it as soon as we're happy with the
layout, and have the components all ready to be integrated into a
prototype.
Kindest Regards,

http://www.modmypi.com

Thanks for the links Tony - look interetsing to keep an eye on the future developments.

@ Charlie: I had a good look round on amazon and the reviews vary quite a lot. In the end I decide to try this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mini-Android-Go ... cr_pr_pb_t

I take their previous price with a pinch of salt but what made me choose this over the one you got Charlie was the WIFI stick aerial (probably not much more than a visual thing) and free postage - otherwise I think the spec is the same but perhaps a different chip clone.

[Charlie]

<snip>

@ Charlie: I had a good look round on amazon and the reviews vary quite a lot. In the end I decide to try this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mini-Android-Go ... cr_pr_pb_t

I take their previous price with a pinch of salt but what made me choose this over the one you got Charlie was the WIFI stick aerial (probably not much more than a visual thing) and free postage - otherwise I think the spec is the same but perhaps a different chip clone.

Oh OK, does not seem as your one comes with a power adapter tho'. The bad reviews for the dongle I bought are from mainly user error and people with a poor wifi set-up and/or using a power supply under 2A (as this dongle did not come with a power supply at one point, but NOW DOES come with a USB power adapter that works great) - Also you can use a USB Ethernet adapter to wire it to your router (via a power-line LAN socket if need be). The one I got can be rooted and there is CWM for it too.

P.S. There is a custom firmware available for the MK809 dongle too, called Finless v1.7.