Post by softair on Dec 12, 2016 17:58:50 GMT
Well, the bullet has been bitten, and I've ordered a RasPi starter kit to experiment with its capabilities.
I currently have a £10 Now box, onto which is sideloaded Plex, and this seems to work quite well playing videos off my NAS/Server. The only problem with this is that apart from the usual "Apps" like iPlayer and loads of Sky stuff that's of no interest, Plex is the only streamer software that can be sideloaded, and I really wanted to have a go with Kodi/XBMC. It looks as though building a RasPi/Kodi client gadget is fairly simple, so fingers crossed.
The only connection from the Now Box to the TV is an HDMI cable, which clearly carries both Audio and Video signals to the TV, and I believe the Audio signal is digital (ish) so presumably there's some kind of DtoA Converter in the TV. Is this right? The TV analogue audio output is connected to the main HiFi, and seems OK - no great expectations, and it's much better than the TV speakers! But Plex can be persuaded to play FLAC files, and compared to the same file streamed to a SqueezeBox directly connected to the HiFi, it makes a surprisingly good fist of things, albeit clearly not as good.
Anyway, this led me to wonder whether I might kill two birds with one stone, particularly as if we're watching TV we're not listening to music (and vice versa) and build one box that serves both purposes. Watch this space.
I see that audio taken from the RasPi directly is apparently pretty poor (although some say not as poor as you might think). Does the RasPi have any kind of build-in DtoA hardware, or does it do it all by steam? I'll probably give it a try, just for a laugh.
On the assumption that for decent sound quality I need a proper RasPi DAC, is there any that is particularly recommended? I see the HiFiBerry and the IOaudIO ones seem to crop up most often, but there appear to be others. Suggestions or comments welcome. These quite appeal, because both companies also offer RasPi amplifiers so one could make a nice small self contained SqueezeBox gadget: just add speakers, I guess.
Which also leads me to ask if such a setup might send the Audio directly to the HiFi, and the Video (plus audio if it must) to the TV. And if so, does one run into lip-sync problems?
Well, with bits arriving tomorrow, I'm off to see if I can find a suitable RasPi distro that will enable me to load both Kodi/XBMC and Squeezebox Lite. Possibly via dual-boot, or maybe not.
I may be some time!
I currently have a £10 Now box, onto which is sideloaded Plex, and this seems to work quite well playing videos off my NAS/Server. The only problem with this is that apart from the usual "Apps" like iPlayer and loads of Sky stuff that's of no interest, Plex is the only streamer software that can be sideloaded, and I really wanted to have a go with Kodi/XBMC. It looks as though building a RasPi/Kodi client gadget is fairly simple, so fingers crossed.
The only connection from the Now Box to the TV is an HDMI cable, which clearly carries both Audio and Video signals to the TV, and I believe the Audio signal is digital (ish) so presumably there's some kind of DtoA Converter in the TV. Is this right? The TV analogue audio output is connected to the main HiFi, and seems OK - no great expectations, and it's much better than the TV speakers! But Plex can be persuaded to play FLAC files, and compared to the same file streamed to a SqueezeBox directly connected to the HiFi, it makes a surprisingly good fist of things, albeit clearly not as good.
Anyway, this led me to wonder whether I might kill two birds with one stone, particularly as if we're watching TV we're not listening to music (and vice versa) and build one box that serves both purposes. Watch this space.
I see that audio taken from the RasPi directly is apparently pretty poor (although some say not as poor as you might think). Does the RasPi have any kind of build-in DtoA hardware, or does it do it all by steam? I'll probably give it a try, just for a laugh.
On the assumption that for decent sound quality I need a proper RasPi DAC, is there any that is particularly recommended? I see the HiFiBerry and the IOaudIO ones seem to crop up most often, but there appear to be others. Suggestions or comments welcome. These quite appeal, because both companies also offer RasPi amplifiers so one could make a nice small self contained SqueezeBox gadget: just add speakers, I guess.
Which also leads me to ask if such a setup might send the Audio directly to the HiFi, and the Video (plus audio if it must) to the TV. And if so, does one run into lip-sync problems?
Well, with bits arriving tomorrow, I'm off to see if I can find a suitable RasPi distro that will enable me to load both Kodi/XBMC and Squeezebox Lite. Possibly via dual-boot, or maybe not.
I may be some time!
