Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Once you have answered them, you will be told:
Raspbmc is now ready to finish setup on your Pi, please insert the SD card
with an active internet connection
Connect your Ethernet, keyboard, and mouse to the Pi. Insert the SD card and plug it
in for first boot. If you don't have a network connection, you'll get an error on a blue
screen:
Sorry, I couldn't connect to the update server. Please verify you have a
wired network ocnnection or properly configured wireeless connection and dis
able any proxy servers on your network.
After you have done this, unplug your Raspberry Pi for 60 seconds before try
ing again.
Assuming it does find the network connection, you'll get a message telling you that
this is going to take 15-20 minutes.
Once it's finished, XBMC is ready to go. Restart the system, and you can start using
your new media center. Periodically, XBMC will offer helpful tips when you do some-
thing for the first time (it's quite user-friendly). All that's left is to decide what to en-
tertain yourself with!
XBMC supports just about any format you want to throw at it. You can watch DVDs
and unencrypted Blu-ray discs. You can play CDs. For files you have on a drive, you
can play, watch, or listen to more file types than you can name off the top of your head,
including all the standard video formats—even the open Ogg format.
If you doubt the thoroughness of the options, acceptable audio files include NSF (NES
Sound Format), SID (Commodore 64), and YM (Atari ST). The
XBMC wiki
has a com-
plete list of supported types for reference.
XBMC will communicate over all sorts of networking protocols, including AirPlay,
UPnP, SMB/SAMBA/CIFS, NFS, NTP, and WebDAV. (And that's just a start.)
Decode MPEG-2 and VC-1
The Raspberry Pi doesn't include a license to decode MPEG-2 or VC-1. That decision
was made to keep the price of the device as low as possible. Then everyone wanted
to use the Pi for a media center with their existing libraries that included MPEG-2
encoded files.
If that includes you, you can purchase an inexpensive
MPEG-2 license
from the Rasp-
berry Pi store. Microsoft's
VC-1 license
is also available. Unfortunately, this isn't instant
gratification, so plan ahead. The licenses are generated offline and sent to you within
72 hours of purchase.
