What is Raspberry Pi for?

[ultimatebob]

I'm so tempted to jump on this, but they didn't change the the video, so it won't do 4k.

If you can afford $500+ for a 4K monitor, I'd like to think that you could afford a better media center PC to drive it.

 

[Muadib]

If you can afford $500+ for a 4K monitor, I'd like to think that you could afford a better media center PC to drive it.

I'm done with using media center pcs. They are much to big, and don't offer any real advantage over something like this. Yeah it would solve the 4k issue, but it would cost a lot more too.

And for the record, this would be for my tv set that I plan to get in the next year or two. This would work for now, but I'd like to avoid having to buy basically the same thing again if I can.

 

[ultimatebob]

I'm done with using media center pcs. They are much to big, and don't offer any real advantage over something like this. Yeah it would solve the 4k issue, but it would cost a lot more too.

And for the record, this would be for my tv set that I plan to get in the next year or two. This would work for now, but I'd like to avoid having to buy basically the same thing again if I can.

I'm not so sure about that. The Media Center PC DVR system would probably have enough horsepower to record multiple HD streams at the same time while playing back a third HD stream, which I doubt even the next gen Raspberry Pi could do.

I could see this thing making a great media player for playing prerecorded media in a car, though. Get rid of those outdated 7" nav system screens from 2004-2008 era cars, and put something cool in it's place.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I'm done with using media center pcs. They are much to big, and don't offer any real advantage over something like this. Yeah it would solve the 4k issue, but it would cost a lot more too.

Completely wrong.

I have a celeron Chromebox driving my 4K TV. It is small, quiet, can play material that would choke a Pi or any Android box, and are only about $150. Oh and the Wifi is good enough to stream full HD material (and a lot of my 4K stuff with the proper buffer setup) with ease and the CPU is able to run the best skins possible.

The Chromebox completely reset the HTPC market. I don't see any other reason to do anything else for a primary viewing station.

 

[Cerb]

Some others, e.g. Arduino, can be a fair bit cheaper. But they would have far less ram, speed, maybe no video out (HDMI) etc on the board, and won't have the huge Rasberry PI infrastructure (hardware and software)**.
Although the Arduino has an extensive infrastructure of its own. There are also pricier but higher spec Arduino stuff as well.

**What I mean is that the INFRASTRUCTURES are different. They are both big in their own right.

An Arduino is not an alternative, unless doing something very basic. It's not merely speed and RAM, but support for popular OSes and software (Android, and popular Linux distros), which even the fast expensive Intel board lacks. The RPi(s) is/are not (a) uC board(s); the Arduino(s) is/are; but the RPi(s) has/have GPIO anyway.

 

[Muadib]

Completely wrong.

I have a celeron Chromebox driving my 4K TV. It is small, quiet, can play material that would choke a Pi or any Android box, and are only about $150. Oh and the Wifi is good enough to stream full HD material (and a lot of my 4K stuff with the proper buffer setup) with ease and the CPU is able to run the best skins possible (unlike even a Pi 2).

The Chromebox completely reset the HTPC market. I don't see any other reason to do anything else for a primary viewing station.

I didn't think of a chrome box as a htpc. If I were to get one, should I go i3, or is the Celeron good enough?

 

[NikolaeVarius]

I didn't think of a chrome box as a htpc. If I were to get one, should I go i3, or is the Celeron good enough?

Celeron will have zero problems running anything you throw at it.

http://kodi.wiki/view/ASUS_Chromebox

 

[Muadib]

Celeron will have zero problems running anything you throw at it.

http://kodi.wiki/view/ASUS_Chromebox

Does it do the HD audio?

 

[poofyhairguy]

I didn't think of a chrome box as a htpc. If I were to get one, should I go i3, or is the Celeron good enough?

The only thing the celeron one can't do is the more intense Hi10 HEVC 4k material. There isn't a lot of that around though, and I don't expect to see a lot for a while. I will say the celeron one plays 100% of my 1080p content and every non Hi10 4k file I have which is amazing. With the newest Openelec it even plays 1080i stuff like a champ. I vote for the celeron model, as I said that is my 4k HTPC.

Oh and Asus has the best models IMHO.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Does it do the HD audio?

All day no problem.

 

[Muadib]

Thanks for the info! I'm off to Amazon now...

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

An Arduino is not an alternative, unless doing something very basic. It's not merely speed and RAM, but support for popular OSes and software (Android, and popular Linux distros), which even the fast expensive Intel board lacks. The RPi(s) is/are not (a) uC board(s); the Arduino(s) is/are; but the RPi(s) has/have GPIO anyway.

I generally agree with you.
The RPi is basically built at approximately minimum cost, and sold at near that price (give or take a bit). So it is excellent value for money.

But the specifics of some projects, make other systems (potentially including the direct variants of RPi, including various expansion and add on boards, etc), can sometimes make more sense.

This can mean spending huge amounts of money, e.g. $999 (Guess) just for the board, because it has the ultra high speed A to D converters, or huge amounts of Ram, or FPGA(s) built in, etc etc.

Or getting $3.99 small Arduinos, because your centipede (hypothetical) robot, has a micro board for each leg pair (LAZY tech development or highly modular construction) needs x50 boards per robot.

50 X $4 = $200 is much more affordable than 50 X $35 = $1750.

(The centipede is made up of 50 3D printed, plug together modular sections, which each have their own tiny micro board on them).

N.B. I just made up that example, but there are many real projects, which can be like that.

EDIT:
To be clear, I AGREE WITH WHAT YOU SAID.

 

[clamum]

Mostly for silly things because you want to experiment.

I built one with a 2.8" LCD screen attached to it that is mounted outside one of the boardrooms at the office; it lets you see who has that room booked by scrolling through its little interface.

That is very cool. I assume it interfaces with SharePoint or Outlook or something else that serves as a database of room bookings? Any other details you care to share?