Raspberry Pi - Who's gonna have a dabble?

[Justices]

DeuxCentCinq said:

Link? Or is it an unofficial thing?

Sold locally in China. Can send you one if you want.

[DeuxCentCinq]

Justices said:

DeuxCentCinq said:

Link? Or is it an unofficial thing?

Sold locally in China. Can send you one if you want.

Oh rats, my Father has just got back from Shanghai. Won't be there for another year or so.

[anonymous-user]

Question.
This concerns the new raspberry pi thing with the quad core processor.
Will the video output via the HDMI be capable of working with a VGA input monitor. I know you can get a HDMI TO VGA lead that works on some devices. I think its to do with where the video conversion takes place ? "are HDMI enabled which mean they have built in signal converter to accept HDMI Signal through VGA Port."
Or does it mean the onus is purely on the monitor side ?
If that makes sense

[tribbles]

HDMI is a digital interface, derived from the DVI standard (Digital Visual Interface).

VGA is an analogue format, so you would not be able to drive VGA directly from an HDMI interface - you will need a converter, as you have mentioned. This take the HDMI (digital) signal, and converts it into an analogue format. How well this works depends on the converter, and how well the HDMI device adheres to the HDMI standards (i.e. if it's a dodgy HDMI->VGA converter connected to a dodgy HDMI source, then you're on shaky ground).

VGA is probably a little less strict with the encoding of the format, so you will probably find that monitors would be more able to cope with a dodgy VGA interface.

Whether the Pi2 works with more converters or not, I don't know I'm afraid.

In any case, eliminating any converter is the best course of action (so if you have an HDMI or a VGA input on a monitor/TV, it's best to use the HDMI if you have an HDMI output).

Edited by tribbles on Saturday 7th March 17:07

[GSE]

I'm a recent convert to RPi, but know little about programming.

Anybody using a PI in their car - as a music server?

I wanted an in-car player capable of:

HD music file playback to the car headunit
Able to serve files via wifi to nearby devices
Lots of on-board storage
Able to be remotely controlled from by wi-fi, from home PC or in the car via tablet
Able to run on the car 12v system, and or on its own via battery backup
Able to switch it on and off remotely using keyfob

I wasn't able to find anything of the shelf that met these requirements so I made my own system using:

RPi B+ model with Hi-Fi berry Dac card
Seagate 2TB HD storage
TP link TL MR3020 mini router
A 433mhz keyfob remote system from Maplin
12v and 5v voltage regulators
(Optional 12v battery backup for extended remote running (avoids draining the car battery)

It sits in box in the boot and is about the size of an old CD autochanger (remember those?)

I run it as a headless system using a tablet to control it. I'm running Volumio software for HD music playback, it sounds great. The days of messing about with media on CDs and memory cards are gone. The on-board 2TB storage is a mirror image of my home music database, so i've always got the music I want on board. With the car in my drive and in range of my home wifi, I can remotely power the system up in the car and sync the databases, set playlists, hit play and once I get in the car its already playing for me. Last bit of the system is to get track advance/forward/pause etc working via the steering wheel controls.

There are several enhancements I need to make (improve the file transfer speed over wifi being one of them) but I know very little about programming and need some help. I was wondering if the routing/wifi functionality could be incorporated into the RPi volumio image to reduce the number of components required in the system?

It's very easy to install in the car, just 12v in, and audio out are required. As I said I could find nothing out of the box that met my requirements - could selling such a system be commercially viable?

Edited by GSE on Saturday 7th March 18:44

[anonymous-user]

Thank you tribbles think you have pretty much confirmed what I was trying to get at.
Its appreciated

[boxst]

DeuxCentCinq said:

Link? Or is it an unofficial thing?

If you want to play old games, have a read here: http://lifehacker.com/how-to-turn-your-raspberry-p...

[Esders]

Oakey said:

Have you shown your wife the lightberry and what it does? Because I excitedly showed my girlfriend a youtube vid of a lightberry running and she said "that's terrible, it'd drive me nuts", instantly pissing all over my bonfire and making me feel like a sad geek at the same time.

Yes, and she is really excited about it as well. I have trained her well. Having said that, I gradually introduced the idea over months.

I went for the HD version. Will let you all know how it works out when I have it all installed. Lightberry is still on the way from Poland.

[DeuxCentCinq]

GSE said:

I'm a recent convert to RPi, but know little about programming.

Anybody using a PI in their car - as a music server?

I wanted an in-car player capable of:

HD music file playback to the car headunit
Able to serve files via wifi to nearby devices
Lots of on-board storage
Able to be remotely controlled from by wi-fi, from home PC or in the car via tablet
Able to run on the car 12v system, and or on its own via battery backup
Able to switch it on and off remotely using keyfob

I wasn't able to find anything of the shelf that met these requirements so I made my own system using:

RPi B+ model with Hi-Fi berry Dac card
Seagate 2TB HD storage
TP link TL MR3020 mini router
A 433mhz keyfob remote system from Maplin
12v and 5v voltage regulators
(Optional 12v battery backup for extended remote running (avoids draining the car battery)

It sits in box in the boot and is about the size of an old CD autochanger (remember those?)

I run it as a headless system using a tablet to control it. I'm running Volumio software for HD music playback, it sounds great. The days of messing about with media on CDs and memory cards are gone. The on-board 2TB storage is a mirror image of my home music database, so i've always got the music I want on board. With the car in my drive and in range of my home wifi, I can remotely power the system up in the car and sync the databases, set playlists, hit play and once I get in the car its already playing for me. Last bit of the system is to get track advance/forward/pause etc working via the steering wheel controls.

There are several enhancements I need to make (improve the file transfer speed over wifi being one of them) but I know very little about programming and need some help. I was wondering if the routing/wifi functionality could be incorporated into the RPi volumio image to reduce the number of components required in the system?

It's very easy to install in the car, just 12v in, and audio out are required. As I said I could find nothing out of the box that met my requirements - could selling such a system be commercially viable?

Edited by GSE on Saturday 7th March 18:44

That sounds pretty awesome. I remember trying to build a similar thing from a mini-ITX PC in the boot of my old Primera. Never really worked properly!

[Yazar]

Justices said:

Sold locally in China. Can send you one if you want.

Any pics? What pads does it use?

[durbster]

My Pi 2 has arrived. I knew they were small but it really is tiny! I was going to use an old takeaway box to house it until I figure out where it's going, but now I think it'll get lost in one

[dxg]

Berz said:

Hi all. Looking for some audio help with my Pi.

Currently I have a Pi B running Raspbmc. It's pretty much unused because I'm finding HD content over my wifi is very buffery/laggy.

Planning to repurpose it as part of a house move. Similar idea, but with wired network and an AV receiver. What I want it to do is receive HD content from my PC (or at some point a NAS). HDMI out from the Pi to the AV receiver. HDMI from AV receiver to the TV. That part should work fine. For audio though, does the Pi send 5.1 audio through HDMI to the AV receiver so that I can then output it to speakers like other sources, or do I have to handle audio separately? I assume AV receivers split the audio out once they receive it rather than sending it up HDMI to the TV then having an audio out on the TV.

Basically I want to avoid spending £XXX more to get an AV receiver with network when I have a Pi sat there collecting dust which can do that job.

Have a look at iqaudio.com - they do a *lovely* little DAC that plugs onto the top of the PI. There's a few of these out there, but this one is particularly nice.

They provide a version of raspbian with the relevant configuration, or you might want to look at volumio, which is geared up for the DACs available for the Pi...

I set up shairport-sync on a pi with this board and am a *very* happy bunny.

[Esders]

I will let you all know how I get one when I have it up and running (hopefully at the weekend)..

[dxg]

Esders said:

I will let you all know how I get one when I have it up and running (hopefully at the weekend)..

Looking forward to seeing how this works. It looked like a good solution - it's the one with an HDMI splitter and a video capture card for the Pi, isn't it?

[Esders]

Yep, that's the one. You can buy all the parts separately but frankly the convenience of buying all from one place and making sure that it is all compatible was an attractive proposition.

[GSE]

DeuxCentCinq said:

That sounds pretty awesome. I remember trying to build a similar thing from a mini-ITX PC in the boot of my old Primera. Never really worked properly!

I'm very pleased with the convenience that the system brings and the quality of the sound from the HiFiBerry Dac - it handles multi format including 24bit/96khz. I did consider building a PC based some years ago, but came to the conclusion that it would be too big, would consume too much power, and would take too long to boot up or shut down. The arrival of the Raspberry Pi, Android and open source software has made it feasible.

It's very much a prototype at the moment. I intend to get it all fitted in a proper case suitable for the boot of a car, along with some blue leds to indicate system power or activity. At the moment I'm running a 2TB HDD - I was concerned that vibration in the car could affect it, but it has been absolutely fine. Ideally I'd like to replace the HDD with SSD when the price becomes realistic.

The main issue at the moment is relatively slow file transfer speeds via wifi. I can get a solid 150 mb/s wifi connection from my house to the car, via the TP link router, but that translates into a maximum file transfer speed of only about 1mb/s. So it can take a while to transfer music into the car. I've tried different dual band routers, and and even an external antenna for the router on the roof of the car, but it doesn't seem to make much difference. Where is the other 149 mb/s of bandwidth going?






The Volumio interface is very easy to use. I usually select albums to play, or playlists, at home, before I leave for work, whilst I'm having breakfast

Lack of steering wheel control doesn't really bother me as nowadays I mainly listen to live music concerts from start to end without interruption. I would eventually like to get it working though - I'm waiting for Volumio to incorporate bluetooth so as it can be remotely controlled.

[Yazar]

GSE said:

I did consider building a PC based some years ago, but came to the conclusion that it would be too big, would consume too much power, and would take too long to boot up or shut down.

Are you aware of the MP3car forums? Its been around for many years and full of folks with their incar solutions, (not been on it for years so don't know if any are using the PI or not).

http://www.mp3car.com/index.php

[GSE]

Yazar said:

Are you aware of the MP3car forums? Its been around for many years and full of folks with their incar solutions, (not been on it for years so don't know if any are using the PI or not).

http://www.mp3car.com/index.php

Not been there for a while, but I did spend a lot of time looking some years ago. Everybody has different requirements, and there are many many different solutions, but they all looked too complicated and costly to me so I never bothered. The arrival of the Pi rekindled my interest. So I went to Maplin electronics, bought the parts, stuffed them in a case, and it's been working ever since

[Justices]

Yazar said:

Any pics? What pads does it use?

Will post a few later. I use USB SuperNES pads.

[Du1point8]

Esders said:

I will let you all know how I get one when I have it up and running (hopefully at the weekend)..

How much and where from?

What is the full kit that would be needed for everything?

I see here:

https://lightberry.eu/shop/

Lightberry and HDMI premium, do I need anything else?

Also do they have a shop in UK?