The best pi in town
I needed a media device at the beginning of the year and with a limited budget as always, I looked for the cheap option. Now for those of you who have not heard of such a thing this is a shockingly simple device that has limitless uses! Seriously have a look at the Raspberry Pi site for just a few of the uses for this amazing piece of kit.
Model B Raspberry Pi
Now I use mine for a simple task, as a home media server, the set up was as simple as plugging in a pc, which it sort of is. Once connected it was a simple task of dropping the OS onto the SD card and away you go, or at least that is what we thought, the instructions supplied with the device were not up to much but after an hour or so of faffing we had it up and running RaspBMC.
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Screen shot of RaspBMC playing Qi from the BBC iPlayer
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This media centre software is based on the original XBMC software and is so easy to use and customize it makes me think why did I not have this before??? Not only will it play full 1080p HD movies from a removable device but with the 1channel repository installed you can stream pretty much anything, literally. There are hundreds of add ons for XBMC and Rasp from You Tube to BBC iPlayer and even Netflix.
The device its self is powered from a micro USB which they suggest you plug into the mains but if you have a USB on your TV then that will work fine as well, this also means that you are using significantly less power than having your PC powered up for media duties! So its Green, cost effective and with no cooling fans quiet too! The only additional cost was the case which cost whole £4.95 from Ebay and there are loads to choose from. Call me scrooge, call me cheap but this little Gadget with its £30.00 price tag is a no brainer! Couple it with the Yatse remote for your Android device and you have a budget media centre that is extremely hard to beat for the cost and you can always re-program it to be the control module of a UAV if that takes your fancy!
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| Pi in its home on the back of my TV with External SD reader, Total cost £40.00 |
To summaries, its cheap to buy, run and mess about with, Why wouldn't you get one?
