The Raspberry Pi’s potential as a media centre is promising to say the least. The small, $25 computer is uses an ARM-based system-on-chip (SoC) design which means it plays nice with software and Linux distributions written for the ARM architecture. Of course, you don’t need to understand any of this in order to make use of it, especially now that XBMC now has its own Raspberry-flavoured project.
The release, known as Raspbmc uses the excellent XBMC open source media centre to chew through 1080p video, providing you with a barebones entertainment system for around the price of a new BluRay release. You can even stream AirPlay content straight from your Apple device once you’ve enabled the setting. Some time spent setting it up is required, but then that’s part of the fun when it comes to the RasPi.
Things You’ll Need:
- A Raspberry Pi
- An SD Card
- Raspbmc [FAQ]
- An HDMI cable
- A USB keyboard/mouse for setup
- Ethernet cable/Wi-Fi dongle for networking (optional but recommended)
- A USB hub for adding extra sources directly (optional)
- Some time to set it up using Windows () or OS X/Linux
- A remote control, like this one for iOS or this one for Android
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