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miappa
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2013-01-21, 19:27
(This post was last modified: 2013-01-21, 19:29 by miappa.)
Well, I got it working very good, but I know for a fact that some skins, widgets and add-on can cause some problems.
Many skins uses scripts to update playlists etc. and this can cause a short CPU peak, which in turn can cause stutter in HD movies.
Setup correct it can be very smooth, but all depends on Pi, distro, overclocking, skin, addons etc.
Aeon nox is known to be quite heavy for the Pi.
I have tried all 3 of the biggests distros with success, but I have spent a lot of time trying different settings and skins.
Conluence is probably the best option since it don´t use that many widgets and addons.
I am is using Hybrid (disabled many functions) with quite high overclocking that I have tried out for some time.
Edit: Have in mind though that the Pi is nowhere close to a PC. I also have a ATV2 running XBMC and it is actually much smoother in GUI than the Pi (even though the Pi is more powerful in other ways).
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miappa
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2013-01-21, 19:51
(This post was last modified: 2013-01-21, 19:51 by miappa.)
If your receiver/TV support DTS you can just passthrough, that will work.
If not XBMC must decode the DTS and this might cause stuttering on heavy HD videos.
There is a simple solution to force passthrough if your receiver does not communicate correct with the Pi.
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miappa
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It´s quite simple, if your receiver/TV supports DTS it will handle the decoding and therefor XBMC does not have to.
I have a 512mb and quite happy with it, but there have been much progress to get the 256-model working quite good with XBMC as well.
I am by no means an expert though so correct me if I´m wrong anyone.
All I can say is that I have a 100% working system, even with HD and DTS.
But to be honest, the first models of my TV did not support DTS and I have not found anything that supports my theory that it really does (only that it can transcode DTS to AC3).
So, either it does or my Pi handles the (software) decoding without any problems what so ever.
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miappa
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You have to at least boot it from a SD card.
But there are choices (depending on distros) to install to USB or a NFS share.
As I said though, I have never experienced stuttering other than when I have tested it to it´s limit (meaning playing heavy files with heavy skin at the same time as scanning media).
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miappa
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All distros are good, I would have to say that you have to test yourself.
Since it´s XBMC and omx player on all they are very similar, it´s more question of what you are looking for.
Search the forums, it is many threads discussing distros.
If you plan to install on SD only I would suggest a class 10 card.
If you install to USB or NFS the card doesn´t really matter since it will only boot from it.
The class 4 information is probably old, most people are today using class 10 cards without problems.