OpenELEC 4.0 Beta 6 Works On 4K Graphics, RPi ALSA

[phoronix]

Phoronix: OpenELEC 4.0 Beta 6 Works On 4K Graphics, RPi ALSA

The OpenELEC Linux distribution aimed for home theater PCs and other multimedia Linux experience is nearing its 4.0 release and is powered by XBMC 13...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTY2ODM

[caligula]

Phoronix: OpenELEC 4.0 Beta 6 Works On 4K Graphics, RPi ALSA

The OpenELEC Linux distribution aimed for home theater PCs and other multimedia Linux experience is nearing its 4.0 release and is powered by XBMC 13...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTY2ODM

I'd very much like to see raspberry as a backend for HTPC and Chromecast as frontend. Raspberry is too cumbersome and big and slow at booting (my smart TV turns off power each time I shut down TV). You could have Raspberry model B with two 3 TB drives as storage NAS and stream via DLNA to Chromecast. Chromecast is also much faster at rendering the GUI.

[ortango]

I'd very much like to see raspberry as a backend for HTPC and Chromecast as frontend. Raspberry is too cumbersome and big and slow at booting (my smart TV turns off power each time I shut down TV). You could have Raspberry model B with two 3 TB drives as storage NAS and stream via DLNA to Chromecast. Chromecast is also much faster at rendering the GUI.

Can't see why you'd really want that.... 512ram/100Mbps ethernet/usb2 -- those bottlenecks don't make raspberry a very good backend.... And you can forget transcoding...

Sata->usb2, BOO HISS. HD content over 100Mbps connect or wifi sucks. 512MB ram is not going to be super-stable (depending on filesystem, server function, and # of clients). Can agree about the tv usb power and the cumbersomeness of the pi (there are really cheap vesa mounts for it though).

Also doesn't Chromecast kind of.... suck? I mean it's crippled even compared to other ~35$ android sticks... Google seems to be keeping Chromecast's abilities under lock and key (can not stream from any source of your choice, but only those Google has ok'd). Also doesn't support 4k output, which might be sketchy anyway over wifi.

[caligula]

Can't see why you'd really want that.... 512ram/100Mbps ethernet/usb2 -- those bottlenecks don't make raspberry a very good backend.... And you can forget transcoding...

Sata->usb2, BOO HISS. HD content over 100Mbps connect or wifi sucks. 512MB ram is not going to be super-stable (depending on filesystem, server function, and # of clients). Can agree about the tv usb power and the cumbersomeness of the pi (there are really cheap vesa mounts for it though).

Also doesn't Chromecast kind of.... suck? I mean it's crippled even compared to other ~35$ android sticks... Google seems to be keeping Chromecast's abilities under lock and key (can not stream from any source of your choice, but only those Google has ok'd). Also doesn't support 4k output, which might be sketchy anyway over wifi.

Commercial 4k video will be 12-20 Mbps. So 802.11n will be fast enough and especially 802.11ac will work just fine. Too bad Raspberry won't deliver it. I think the main reason Chromecast is better as frontend is that it has all functionality builtin and it's a lot cheaper than raspberry + wifi dongle + bt dongle + sd card + cable + external power supply. It's also faster. Someone just needs to kick Google's ass and force them to open source it.

[torturedutopian]

I'd very much like to see raspberry as a backend for HTPC and Chromecast as frontend. Raspberry is too cumbersome and big and slow at booting (my smart TV turns off power each time I shut down TV). You could have Raspberry model B with two 3 TB drives as storage NAS and stream via DLNA to Chromecast. Chromecast is also much faster at rendering the GUI.

Oh well, that's very relative. My Raspi under OpenElec takes, I dunno, maybe 15 seconds to boot ? (I can measure it if you want). Must be SD card dependant I guess. It does the job surprisingly well, and XBMC 13 is much more responsive than before.

Sure it could be faster. But, well, I'm not sure that makes so much sense. At least, Raspi is built in the UK, by a foundation, and is much more open ; much more important than a couple of seconds to me.